H. E. N. Bredin

Major-General Humphrey Edgar Nicholson "Bala" Bredin (28 March 1916 – 2 March 2005) was a British Army officer whose military service took him from 1930s Palestine via Dunkirk, North Africa and Italy to the Cold War in Germany. Bredin was the second son of Lieutenant-Colonel A. Bredin, of the Indian Army. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Palestine
During the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine Bredin was a subaltern with the 2nd Royal Ulster Rifles in Upper Galilee. The Army was charged with protecting Jewish settlements and tracking down Arab insurgents. Bredin took part in counter-insurgency with Major (later Major-General) Orde Wingate’s Special Night Squads. He won his first MC in a clash at a notorious ambush point on the Tulkarm-Nablus road, in April 1938, and a second a month later in a similar action.

Family
Bredin's first marriage, to Jacqueline Geare in 1947, was dissolved in 1961. He married Anne Hardie in 1961. He had one daughter of his first marriage and two daughters of his second.