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Captain / Reverend Bernard Mary Egan
Unit : Battalion Headquarters, 2nd Parachute Battalion
Army No. : 159715
Awards : Military Cross
The Reverend Egan had been the 2nd Parachute Battalion's chaplain since February 1943, but he had previously held the same post at 1st Parachute Brigade Headquarters during the earlier actions in North Africa. At the Battle of Tamera, he was fortunate to survive the blast of a bomb dropped very accurately onto Battalion Headquarters, leaving a thirty foot wide crater in the ground. Nobody was killed as a consequence, but Father Egan received severe bruising as the lumps of earth, which had been propelled into the air, fell to earth. For his conduct during this battle and the subsequent operation in Sicily, Father Egan was awarded the Military Cross:
For conspicuous gallantry, and devotion to duty. Since joining this Battalion in February 1943 Captain Egan has fulfilled his duties as Battalion Chaplain with courage and determination. During the heavy fighting in the Northern Sector in Tunisia in March 1943 he was often in the forefront of the battle, comforting the wounded and encouraging all ranks under heavy fire.
On the night July 13-14th 1943 this officer took part in a parachute operation South of Catania in Sicily and was dropped among enemy positions many miles from the remainder of the Battalion. He collected a small party of parachute troops. After laying up in the near vicinity of the German positions he managed to extricate his party. By cool leadership and initiative he conducted it over difficult country and through the enemy lines, eventually reaching the British positions with his complete party.
Father Egan continued to hold the post of Chaplain with the 2nd Battalion and was present during their famous defence of the Arnhem Bridge in September 1944. The tight perimeter that the Battalion and attached parties held was under continual bombardment, and, as a consequence, the care of the great number of wounded was a most difficult task; crammed into small cellars of buildings that were frequently ablaze, with almost no medical supplies, food or water to sustain them. Father Egan and the small medical team did all that they could, in these trying circumstances, to look after the needs of the injured.
On the evening of Tuesday 19th September, Father Egan was in Battalion HQ when the building was hit by shells, causing him to fall down two flights of stairs to the ground floor, where he lost consciousness. He awoke to find a fatally wounded soldier lying near him, but as Egan began to crawl across to him the building was shaken once more by explosions, and he became unconscious again. By the time he had recovered, the wounded man had since died, and Egan discovered, to his alarm, that the room was on fire and so were his own trousers. By rolling around on the floor he managed to extinguish the flames on his person, and, finding that he could not move his legs, he crawled to a nearby window and attempting to pull himself through it. Lieutenant Buchanan, made a timely appearance and assisted him, passing him to Sergeant Jack Spratt, who carried Egan to the cellar with the rest of the wounded. Here it was discovered that his right leg was broken, and his hands and back were dotted with shrapnel splinters. Captured after British resistance at the bridge finally collapsed, Father Egan was taken to the St Elizabeth Hospital, and later to a POW hospital at Obermassfeldt.