Jack Freeman and Bruce Sloss left the MCG on 26 September 1914 terribly disappointed but inextricably linked.

They had played together for South Melbourne in their last game in the 1914 grand final, and despite a six-point loss to Carlton would be good friends from that day on.

It is part of football culture and is a life-time bond.

Yet for Freeman and Sloss it lasted little more than two years.

On 15 November 1916, on his 25^th birthday, Freeman died of horrific injuries suffered fighting for his country in France after enlisting 16 months earlier in the First Australian Imperial Force, the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during World War I.

Sapper Freeman, a soldier engaged in military engineering duties, had been with a party of engineers carrying out important works near the firing trench when two enemy shells exploded among them.

Several died instantly and others were badly wounded. Freeman had both legs amputated and died in a military hospital at Abancourt in northern France when hospital authorities were preparing to send him to England.

He had sent a cable to his parents stating that “he had a leg broken and two other wounds but was not too bad’ before the Defence Department confirmed the worst.

Six weeks later, on 4 January 1917, in nearby Armentières, Sloss too, was killed in battle.

Like Freeman, he had enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force in 1915. He was a machine-gun officer and served in 1916 in England, where he was promoted to Lieutenant.

In October 1916 he joined other Australian servicemen in a charity football match at Queen’s Club, West Kensington, to raise funds for the British and French Red Cross.

It was played in front of 8000 diggers plus King Manuel of Spain and the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII of England.

Sloss captained the victorious Third Australian Divisional Team, which wore a blue guernsey with a white map of Australia on the front, against the Australian Training Units team, who wore red guernseys with a white kangaroo.

Soon after Sloss’ unit was relocated to France and headquartered behind the front. He was seen talking to a fellow solider after returning from the front before a stray German artillery shell landed at his feet. He died instantly.

Also killed in action in northern France, 21 months later, on 5 July 1918, a month before his brother Clarence was killed, was Private Claude Thomas, a former teammate of Freeman and Sloss at South Melbourne.

The trio had played together in each of Thomas’ eight games in 1914 before Thomas, after missing the 1914 finals, played a further five games in 1915 ahead of joining the war effort.

Sloss, a 180cm follower, had played three games with Essendon as a teenager in 1907-08 before a 12-month stint with Brighton in the VFA. After a protracted clearance dispute he was a standout throughout 81 games with South Melbourne from 1910-14.

He played in the finals each year, including the 1912 and 1914 grand final, and represented Victoria at the Australian Carnival in Sydney in 1914.

He is fondly remembered for his herculean performance in the Swans’ 4.15 (39) to 6.9 (45) grand final loss to Carlton, when he was considered by many to have been best afield.

Jack Worrall, former Australian Test cricketer and Fitzroy footballer, former Carlton coach and Essendon coach at the time, was glowing in his praise in The Australasian. He wrote:

“Sloss had no superior on the ground, his glorious efforts in the last quarter stamping him as a great footballer. He possesses all the qualities, but is apt to attempt the impossible on occasions. He marked, kicked, and ran like a champion, and almost pulled the match out of the fire by his brilliant efforts.”

Freeman, a 170cm full forward, played 22 games for South in 1913-14, and had Sloss as a teammate in 21 of them. Despite his lack of height, he kicked 39 goals in his short career and was South’s leading goal-kicker in 1914 and was equal sixth in the League.

Sloss, Freeman and Thomas are three of 1427 South Melbourne/Sydney Swans players, and three of 20 Swans players known to have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

In 1911, Sloss also played with Fred Fielding in Fielding’s only game with South, before he went to Collingwood in 1913. In 1916, Fielding enlisted in the army in Perth under the name James Gleeson.

Having used his father’s christian name and his mother’s maiden name, Fielding, who played 13 games with Collingwood, died in action in France on 8 August 1918, the first day of the famous “Hundred Days Offensive” by the Allies that ended the war.

Also, Thomas played two games in 1915 with Norm Bradford, a seven-gamer overall who served as a Corporal in the AIF. He was killed in action when in charge of a section of his battalion's bomb throwers at Pozières, France, on 4 August 1916.

The 20 Swans players killed during war service are remembered especially this week, when the Swans were originally scheduled to Brisbane at the Gabba on Saturday night, ANZAC Day.

And they will remain in the hearts and thoughts of the club forever.

Listed with their unit and their date of death they were:

World War 1

Norm Bradford
Rank: Corporal, 23rd Battalion, First A.I.F
Date of Death: 4 August, 1916
Location: Pozieres, France

Hughie Callan
Private, 14th Battalion, First A.I.F.
5 February, 1917
Bapaume, France           

Fred Fielding
Private, 28th Battalion, First A.I.F.
8 August, 1918
Villers-Bretonneux, France

Charlie Fincher
Private, 5th Battalion, First A.I.F.
25 April, 1915
Gallipoli, Turkey

Jack Freeman
Sapper, 2nd Field Company, Australian Engineers, First A.I.F.
15 November, 1916
Flers, France

Ed Harrison
Sergeant, 24th Battalion, First A.I.F.
13 March, 1917
Étaples, France

Harold Rippon
Private, 2nd Pioneer Battalion
16 January, 1917
France

Bruce Sloss
Lieutenant, 10th Machine Gun Company, First A.I.F.
4 January, 1917
Armentières, France

Claude Thomas
Private, 14th Battalion, First A.I.F.
5 July, 1918
Hamel, France

Jack Turnbull
Private, 39th Battalion, First A.I.F.
2 May, 1917
Western Front, France

World War 2

Jeff Grieve
Flight Sergeant, R.A.A.F
8 November, 1944
Glen Shee, Scotland

Gordon Hamilton
Seaman, HMAS Cerberus, R.A.N.
23 February, 1941
Chelsea, Victoria

Alf Hedge
Pilot Officer, 78 Squadron, R.A.A.F.
4 May, 1942/
Hamburg, Germany

Norm Le Brun
Trooper, 2/10th Australian Cavalry
15 November, 1944
Aitapi, New Guinea

Alan Pearsall
Flying Officer, 16 Squadron, R.A.A.F.
8 March, 1944
English Channel

Gordon Sawley
Flying Officer, 19 Operational Training Unit, R.A.A.F.
14 August, 1942
Scotland

Jack Shelton
Lieutenant, 2/21st Battalion, Second A.I.F.
1 May, 1941
Libya

Len A. Smith
N/A
29 July, 1943
OAS Hospital, Heidelberg, Victoria

Len Thomas
Private, 2/3rd Independent Company, Second A.I.F.
17 August, 1943
Salamaua, New Guinea

Jack Wade
Private, 2/27th Battalion, Second A.I.F.
11 June, 1941
Syria

Lest We Forget.