|
|
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Site Home
Help & FAQs
Features
Submissions
Information
Advertisements
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Pte. Gerald Joseph Egan
New Zealand Expeditionary Force 3rd Btn. 12th Coy. Canterbury Infantry
from:Tullamore, Kings County, Ireland
The New Zealand government started a campaign to provide for sale, at favourable prices, lots of farming land in the Nelson locality on South Island. This involved the break-up of large 25,000 acre, sheep farms. In 1910 William Egan, Maltster, and fourth eldest son of Henry Egan, merchant, Tullamore decided to take advantage of the scheme and emigrated to Marlborough, Blenheim, South Island, at the age of 28. William J. settled and first farmed in the Atatere Valley having lodged at the Marlborough Hotel, Blenheim. As a pioneering farmer, the Awatere was a tough environment and upon hearing of pip fruit orchard land for sale, decided to sell and move further North to Neudorf, Upper Moutere, near Nelson. By now he owned under mortgages both a small hotel in Cape Campbell/Marlborough as well as an apple farm in Neudorf. Around 1912, he was joined at Neudorf by his younger brother Gerald Joseph Egan, a student in the bank in Ireland and sixth son of Henry Egan, at the time aged 20.
The menace of war was on the horizon in Europe and the young six foot tall and fit Gerald J. enlisted at Nelson on the 18th August 1914, three weeks after Britain declared war on the Germans. He joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. After 88 days of training drills Private Gerald Joseph Egan bade farewell to his brother William for the last time as he was shipped off to Egypt. He was to spend 3 years and 155 days in action in the Great War. It was not Private Gerald Egan who was to die prematurely, but sadly, his older brother William who died of heart failure at Moutuka Hospital interred therein for seven days suffering pneumonia. William had spent six years in New Zealand and at the tender age of 34 passed away on the 18th November 1916.
From Alexandria, Gerald served time with the ANZAC forces, having fought and survived at the Dardanelles, as well as at Mudros and Imbros and Galapolli in 1915. He was discharged to base at Alexandria, suffering dysentery, and later jaundice. Once discharged from hospital, he was then shipped to the Western front in Belgium after training at 2nd Army Sniper school at Sling, Wiltshire. As part of the 3rd Canterbury Infantry Battalion he was to serve and survive the brutality of the Battle of Messiers, a prelude to the Battle of Ypres. In taking the strategically important and well-fortified German held village of Messiers, Egan sustained a gunshot wound to his right knee and was removed via field ambulance to the South African field hospital on the 7th June 1917. Between 1st and 14th June ANZAC forces lost 4,978 men and the Germans lost 23,000.
He was transferred to Abbeville, Rouen in France and onto Bathurst and lost his right leg to amputation on the 22nd Jan 1918. He was declared unfit for further action on 28th January 1918 and was shipped back to home-base through Liverpool bound for Mauaganui, New Zealand on board the Encouibo.
He was decorated with three medals: the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Gerald Joseph was discharged on army pension on the 16th April 1918. He died unmarried and alone on the 31st January 1959 at 44 Austin Street, Wellington. The Coroner conducted a post mortem but decided, under the circumstances, not to conduct an inquest. His remains are interred at Karori, Wellington.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
The Wartime Memories Project Website
is archived for preservation by the British Library
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.
