Assigned to 602BS, 398BG, 8AF USAAF. 26+ combat missions. Shot down near Kahlstorf (Lehmke), Germany, 3-Feb-45, in B-17 'Maude an Maria' 42-97387. Prisoner of War (POW).



Killed on outskirts of Nuremberg, Germany, by strafing American P-47s during a forced march. Died as a Prisoner of War. His remains were never recovered and, strangely, he is not listed as Missing In Action at https://www.dpaa.mil/Our-Missing/World-War-II/Service-Personnel-Not-Rec…, either for New York or any other State...

Fellow POW 2nd Lt Virgil W. Ethridge, who was on the forced march with Bill Egan, wrote “Time Out”, a 1997 privately published memoir. Quoted from his story in John Nichol and Tony Rennell’s book ”The Last Escape” (Viking Penguin, USA, 2003), mentioning in their Chapter 10 : “As more and more camps in Western Germany fell to the advancing Americans, the prisoners of war from Nuremberg were still strung out on the road south. (Ethridge): “We know we are headed for Bavaria, but we don’t know exactly where.” (Last Escape): “But this time there was a different danger. They had left the British and American bombers – the Lancaster's and Flying Fortresses – behind at Nuremberg, but not the fighter planes. There was a rumour that word had somehow been sent to Allied headquarters alerting them to this column of prisoners of war. If so, the information had not been passed on to the American P-47 pilots now overhead.

Bill Ethridge quote : “The planes were upon us and firing! I was walking on the outside of the column and I hit the ditch as soon as I heard it. Bullets rained down along the road where we had been and some clipped leaves off the trees above our heads. Several men were hit and subsequently bandaged with socks, twine and whatever strips of cloth could be made. One man was killed.” It was found later that this man was William Logan… as recorded in fellow POW Sgt Richard G. Chapple's statement on page 19 of MACR 12044 at https://catalog.archives.gov/id/91120167