Len Thomas will forever hold a special place in Swans history. And not just because he played 187 games with the club from 1927-1938, was Club Champion in 1931 and 1938, and was a key member in the 1933 premiership side.

Not because he ranks 37^th on the club’s all-time games list, and is equal third for games played in jumper number 12 with 136, behind only Josh Kennedy (219) and Nic Fosdike (164), and level with Billy King.

And not even because he and father Bill - a 135-game South Melbourne player from 1905-1913, a premiership player in 1909 and captain-coach in 1910-1911 - are the club’s only father-son premiership combination.

In fact, Thomas’ everlasting legacy extends so far beyond football that it makes it entirely secondary.

Thomas was a Swans footballer who gave his life for his country.

According to an updated list released by the AFL in 2019, he was the most experienced AFL player among 366 killed in action during the Boer War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The list is invariably updated each year as further information comes to hand, but as it stands Thomas is one of 18 former South Melbourne players who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

It was all part of his chosen pathway. He retired at 32 in 1940 to enlist for military service.

He had reached the rank of corporal but after the Australian troops’ evacuation from the Middle East in 1941 he asked to revert to the rank of private so he could serve as a commando, a soldier or operative of an elite light infantry or special operations force involved in ambitious landings, parachuting or abseiling.

His rank reversal was approved and he served in the 2^nd/3^rd Independent (Commando) Company in the Second Australian Imperial Force, made up entirely of volunteer personnel in the Australian Army in World War II.

He lost his life on August 17, 1943 while fighting the Japanese in Salamaua, New Guinea. He was 35.

Thomas, born in South Melbourne on July 20, 1908, was a 179-centimetre centreman who became player number 401 on the all-time Swans playing list when he debuted in Round 6, 1927 just 14 years after his father had played his last game.

It was the final season of the legendary Roy Cazaly, and when fit and available thereafter was a fixture in the side until 1938.

After winning the Club Championship in 1931, he played the first of nine finals in 1932 when South ended an eight-year absence from September action, and in 1933, under coach Jack Bisset, he played in the centre as South beat Richmond 9.17 (74) to 4.5 (29) at the MCG to claim its third premiership.

The crowd of 69,724 at the MCG was the biggest in the game’s history at the time, and to celebrate the Swans players had a dinner at Melbourne Town Hall.

Later in the evening they rubbed salt into the wounds of their Tiger opponents when they rode through the streets of Richmond in a charabanc, an early form of a bus generally used for pleasure trips.

He also played in the 1934 and 1936 losing Grand Finals, and had he not missed the 1935 season he, like John Austin, Bisset, Bill Faul, Dinny Kelleher, Herbie Matthews and Laurie Nash, would have played in four Grand Finals in a row.

Even then, only Matthews, Nash and Vic Belcher (five) and Austin, Bisset, Faul, Kelleher, Adam Goodes and Jarryd McVeigh (four) have played in more Grand Finals for the Swans.

In 1938 he deputised as captain for the injured Matthews for much of the year, won a second Club Championship, and polled 10 votes to finish a career-best 15^th in the Brownlow Medal.

In 1939 he was captain-coach of Hawthorn and in 1940 he filled the same role at North Melbourne before retiring three games short of 200 to join the military.

Three of Thomas’ former Swans teammates – Norm Le Brun, Jack Wade and Alf Hedge – are also among those killed in action.

The 18 South Melbourne players acknowledged by the AFL as having been killed in action are:

World War I (1914-18)

Bradford, Norm: 7 games 1915
Callan, Hughie: 36 games 1907-10 (including 1907 Grand Final)
Fincher, Charlie: 9 games 1913
Freeman, Jack: 22 games 1913-14 (including 1914 Grand Final)
Harrison, Ed: 7 games 1906, 1908-09
Rippon, Harold: 5 games 1903
Sloss, Bruce: 81 games 1910-14 (including 1912 and 1914 Grand Finals)
Thomas, Claude: 13 games 1914-15
Turnbull, Jack: 12 games 1908

World War II (1939-45)

Grieve, Jeff: 11 games 1941
Hamilton, Gordon: 2 games 1940
Hedge, Alf: 16 games 1937-38
Le Brun, Norm: 3 games 1929
Pearsall, Allan: 2 games 1941
Sawley, Gordon: 7 games 1941
Smith, Len: 1 game 1902
Thomas, Len: 187 games 1927-38 (including 1933 premiership and 1934 and 1936 Grand Finals)
Wade, Jack: 26 games 1931-33

Significantly, Callan, Harrison and Turnbull played together in one game for the Swans in 1908; Sloss, Fincher and Freeman likewise in 1913; and Sloss, Freeman and Claude Thomas played seven games together in 1914.

Note: Hughie Callan also played 35 games at Essendon (1903-1905), Harold Rippon played five games at Melbourne (1898, 1900), Bruce Sloss also played three games at Essendon (1907-1908), and Norm Le Brun also played 23 games at Essendon (1931-1932), 19 games at Collingwood (1933-1934) and five games at Carlton (1935).