Ships
- USS Farragut (DD-348) Captain, 20 June 1936 – 15 May 1937
Edward Paul Sauer was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on 14 March 1893. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis with the Class of 1916 and served as a regular officer through the First World War and the long peace that followed. By the middle of the 1930s he was a lieutenant commander in the destroyer force.
On 20 June 1936 he took command of the destroyer Farragut, relieving Elliott Buckmaster. The ship, lead boat of a new class and the first American destroyer commissioned in more than ten years, had shifted to the Pacific the year before and worked from San Diego. Sauer remained her commanding officer until 15 May 1937.
After a short period of upkeep she left on 6 July 1936 for a summer cruise to Alaska. She called at Seward and Kodiak, then spent late July in upkeep at Port Angeles and in sound exercises at Port Townsend before visiting Portland, Oregon, from 5 to 10 August. She returned to San Diego on 13 August. On 14 September, off that port, Farragut led a column of squadron mates through maneuvers staged for a newsreel, with patrol planes passing overhead. She then trained with the Scouting Force and went through an overhaul from 18 October to 22 December.
In 1937 she spent from 15 February to 14 March alongside the destroyer tender Dobbin at San Diego. On 1 April she moved to Destroyer Division 2 of Destroyer Squadron 1. From 4 to 9 May, with Sauer still in command, she joined Fleet Problem XVIII, a fleet exercise built around an enemy attempt to seize an advanced base in the Hawaiian Islands. Peter Kalsh Fischler relieved him on 15 May 1937.
Sauer stayed in the Navy as the Pacific crisis grew. His home of record remained Council Bluffs. By September 1941 he was a commander selected for promotion to captain. On 24 August 1942, in the carrier battle east of the Solomon Islands, he commanded Task Group 16. Japanese air groups striking the American force suffered heavy losses under the units he directed, and the Navy awarded him the Navy Cross for the leadership he showed that day. He retired as a rear admiral. Sauer died on 10 January 1972 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.