Portrait of Private (Pte) Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade Company, Australian Army Service ...

Portrait of Private (Pte) Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade Company, Australian Army Service Corps. Pte Saywell was reported missing on 5 June 1941 after the evacuation of Crete, and confirmed as a prisoner of war (POW) in Stalag VII a (in Moosburg, Germany) on 24 October 1941. He was subsequently transferred to Stalag VII b (Memmingen, Germany). In January 1943 he was transferred to Kommando E7010, a prison camp in Bohemia, from which he escaped with three other POWs during a route march. They were sheltered by local villagers and in return offered to assist the Czech partisans in their sabotage operations. Pte Saywell was murdered, shot in the head by a German SS Patrol on 8 May 1945 (VE Day); he was the last Australian killed in Europe during the Second World War. He was the son of Mrs Gertrude Saywell of Double Bay, NSW, and is buried in the Evangelical Cemetery in Miretin, Czechoslovakia. Five months after his death, a memorial was erected in his honour by the 'grateful inhabitants of the village of Miretin'. In November 1945, the President of the Czechoslovak Republic awarded Pte Saywell the Czechoslovak Military Cross for his 'brave and eminent services to our State in the battle for liberation'.

• Portrait of Private (Pte) Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade Company, Australian Army Service ...
• Portrait of Private (Pte) Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade Company, Australian Army Service ...
• Portrait of Private (Pte) Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade Company, Australian Army Service ...
• Informal group portrait of Private Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade Company, Australian ...
• 1942. Informal group portrait of Private Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade Company, ...
• c. 1942. Portrait of a young woman, probably a Ukranian named Maria, who met and befriended ...
• Czechoslovakia. 1942. The hole used as a refuge by Private Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade ...
• Czechoslovakia. 1942. The hole used as a refuge (marked xx) by Private Lawrence Phillip Saywell, ...
• Czechoslovakia. 1942. The school in the village of Miretin. The villagers sheltered Private ...
• Czechoslovakia. 1942. A building in the village of Miretin. On the photograph is written "Praveuv ...
• Czechoslovakia. 1942. A group of friends including Private Lawrence Phillip Saywell, 17th Brigade ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. 1945. The grave of Australian soldier Private Lawrence Phillip Saywell, ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. 1945. Local villagers around the grave of Australian soldier Private ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. 1945. Local villagers around the grave of Australian soldier Private ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. September 1945. The memorial erected in honour of Private Lawrence ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. September 1945. Miretin villagers at the unveiling of the memorial ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. September 1945. Czech officials around the grave of Private Lawrence ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. September 1945. Czech officials and local villagers at the commemoration ...
• Miretin, Czechoslovakia. September 1945. Band members, one with a kangaroo badge in his cap, play ...