Colour patch : Bombadier A E Lawrence, 2/15 Field Regiment

Felt colour patch for 8th Division Artillery, consisting of a horizontally aligned elongated oval divided diagonally red over blue, within a grey border.

Felt colour patch for 8th Division Artillery worn by NX32587 Bombadier Athol Erskin Patrick Joseph "Ern" Lawrence, 2/15 Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, who saw service in Singapore and Malaya before being captured and spending the remainder of the war as a prisoner of the Japanese. He was on one of the working parties that was sent to the Burma-Thai railway, and "came home a stick".

The 2/15 Field Regiment was raised on 12 November 1940 and deployed to Singapore, arriving on 15 August 1941. It saw action against the Japanese invasion of Malaya - and despite fighting hard, were part of the general surrender on 15 February. Of the 556 officers and men who became prisoners, 294 died.

Lawrence was born at Manly, New South Wales on 17 March 1919 and enlisted on 18 June 1940. He had met his wife, Norma, when they both worked at the Alexandria Woollen Mills before the war. The couple were married shortly before Ern left for Singapore.

Lawrence retained the colour patch throughout his captivity; when he returned to Australia he was issued with a new slouch hat and sewed the original patch onto the hat's puggaree. Post-war he continued to wear the hat, with the patch, when he worked in his garden.

Upon his return Lawrence suffered repeated bouts of malaria related to his time as a prisoner of war. He was killed in a car accident in 1975, driving home from work.