Ships
- USS Reno (CL-96) Captain from 23 May 1945 · Relieved on 11 April 1946
Merle Alexander Sawyer had the light cruiser Reno (CL-96) from 23 May 1945 until 11 April 1946. The fighting was over before she left the yard. He took her out for the Magic Carpet runs to Le Havre. NavSource lists him as a captain, class of 1924, and gives no higher rank.
Uboat.net gives his birth as 17 October 1902 and no place. Nothing else on his family was fetched.
NavSource and uboat.net both mark him Naval Academy class of 1924. Uboat.net dates him a lieutenant commander from 1 July 1938, a temporary commander from 17 July 1942, and a temporary captain from 1 June 1943. No Lucky Bag was fetched.
He was not her captain during the Pacific campaign. Hall of Valor lists a Legion of Merit for Captain Merle A. Sawyer as chief of the Ammunition Section, Production Division, Bureau of Ordnance, from September 1942 to May 1945, and marks the citation as not available. The name and the dates fit the man who joined Reno at the end of that month. The page gives his home as Alexandria, Virginia. It does not say the award was for Reno. NavSource starts his command on 23 May 1945. Captain Thomas Joseph Hickey's date on the same list ends on 22 May. DANFS says she entered Charleston on 22 March 1945 and came out seven months later, after the surrender, then went to Texas, back to Charleston for bunks, and made two runs to Le Havre with Army troops. Sawyer's relief on 11 April 1946 falls after those runs had been ordered and, on the dates DANFS gives, after she had started for the west coast only in the sense that "early 1946" is all the history says. The history does not name him.
NavSource gives the ship to Captain Rowland Clifford Lawver on 11 April 1946. She was decommissioned at Port Angeles on 4 November 1946. No later duty, and no death date, was fetched for Sawyer.