British Royal Wedding

Prince Harry’s exploits on the frontline in Afghanistan are revealed in this extract from a new book
Harry’s War: The True Story of Prince Harry’s Heroism in Afghanistan by royal watcher Robert Jobson.

“To the fighter pilots and the crews manning spy planes above the battlefields of Afghanistan he was just Widow Six Seven, another radio call sign, a reassuring voice of authority, a brother in arms, a bit of a wag and, in Harry’s case, an incorrigible flirt.

It seemed you could take the boy out of Boujis, his favourite London nightclub, but not take Boujis out of the boy.

Laughter could be heard coming from the control. Much to the amusement of his colleagues, Harry chatted with a female Harrier pilot, Michelle Tompkins, about the snow-covered mountains over which she was soaring and commented on how perfect they would be for a spot of skiing.

Moments later, a separate radio channel crackled into life with Harry’s laughing comrades telling him to get a room if he was planning on pursuing that line of chat.

Harry’s commanding officer, Battery Commander Major Andy Dimmock, saw the funny side: “We were obviously giving him the mickey.

We said, ‘Flirt with her any longer and you have to get a room’. He said, ‘Does that count as the Mile-High Club?”’

For Harry, and for his fellow soldiers, such joking asides were a welcome relief amid work that could be both tense and tiresome.

Harry and his comrades were happy to share in the good-natured humour that punctuated the tedium of long hours scrutinising surveillance footage from the spy planes at work over southern Afghanistan.

During one long day shift, after Harry had spent hours communicating with one particular crew on a Nimrod spy plane, the aircraft’s pilot turned the onboard camera around to flash a picture of a topless glamour model, taped to the outside of the surveillance craft, down to the control room below.

After all, a war wouldn’t be a war without a pin-up or two, and for the Facebook generation, of which Harry and his comrades were a part, the days of saucy playing cards viewed by torchlight had been replaced by live video feed and internet downloads.

Harry smiled to himself. He knew the Nimrod pilot would see the funny side when his anonymity was blown. He noted: “If he hasn’t worked out (who I am), I’m sure when he sees this he’ll wet himself – especially after that poster he showed me from several thousand feet.”

On another occasion, while watching the dark figure of a Taliban fighter on his screen, Harry could be heard discussing the chances of his disappearing into a bunker.

The pilot jokingly placed a bet of 10,000 pounds, to which Harry responded: “I’ll raise you half a million.”

“You couldn’t afford it,” came the pilot’s reply, not knowing that the voice on the other end was of a young man with a trust fund worth millions and whose grandmother was one of the richest women in the world.

With the anonymity he so enjoyed during his tour of duty, the banter, especially when no-one else could listen to it, was an essential part of the job.

“It’s just me and him (the pilot) having a good banter and obviously when the aircraft come in you know you’ve got them on task for three, 3½ hours and you’re looking for possibly one or two enemy digging a trench and it can get quite tiring,” the Prince said.

“If you’re just saying, ‘Yep, go to this point’ and just putting the radio down and staring at the screen, it just sends you insane.

“So I think it’s good to be relaxed on the net and have a good chat, but when things are pretty hairy then you need to obviously turn on your game face and do the job.”

Harry’s light-hearted account of his role belied the truth.

In the ops room, an array of sophisticated reconnaissance equipment provided a live video feed on to a laptop computer.

Harry and his pals dubbed it Taliban TV or Kill TV.

Explaining his role, Harry told an interviewer: “Terry Taliban and his mates, as soon as they hear air (jets), they go to ground, which makes life a little bit tricky.”

But the hi-tech visual feedback meant Harry could follow them.

It was a baptism of fire for the second lieutenant.

As his close family were arriving for the traditional festive celebrations at Sandringham, the Queen’s estate in Norfolk, at Christmas in 2007, Harry prepared to join the Gurkhas at Forward Operating Base Delhi in downtown Garmsir.

The town’s main street was the British frontline, the start of a 500m no-man’s-land of bombed trenches, irrigation ditches and shattered farms.

Harry Wales didn’t attract a second glance as he patrolled the bombed-out streets of Garmsir.

Why would he? After all, he was just another British soldier, anonymous in battle fatigues. Most of the women and children had long gone.

Afghan bank notes, blown around by the dusty breeze, were strewn everywhere. In the searing heat of the day, only a few bearded men remained, relaxing in the cooler shade of shattered buildings, their rifles never far away.

Harry was under no illusion that he was now at the sharp end of Afghanistan’s frontline.

His tiny spartan camp, had, along with the nearby eastern checkpoint, been repeatedly attacked by the Taliban since the British moved in 2006.

At least he could be grateful that his sleeping billet was mortar proof.

It had to be. Taliban rockets and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) had got through, causing devastating injuries.

The Gurkha Rifles commander, Harry’s direct boss at the camp, was asked whether this was a safe place for a prince.

“No, not really,” he replied in a matter-of-fact manner. “How could it be?”

But for Harry, who feared he would never see frontline service, it was thrilling.

Frankie O’Leary, a 21-year-old from Lewisham in south London, praised Harry’s attitude.

He said: “When a job needs doing he doesn’t shout and scream at you. He just asks you to do it. It makes you want to work for the man. He’s really got stuck in. He’s as keen as mustard.

“Many times he’s stood face-to-face with the locals, where we do hearts-and-minds stuff, giving out water rations.

“They didn’t know who he was, but Harry’s one of those officers you can talk to. He’s laid back and chilled out.”

Harry had spent the previous two days monitoring Taliban movements via unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance feeds.

Harry’s job at the bases was to call in the strikes.

On one occasion, he patched through to Captain Ben Donberg, an American F-15E pilot cruising overhead.

The pilot, from the US Air Force’s 336th Fighter Squadron, was accustomed to defending FOB Delhi, the scrappy British garrison in Helmand.

As far as he was concerned, it was just another part of his Operation Enduring Freedom tour.

An adrenalin-fuelled exchange with the British officer followed.

His heart pumping, Harry managed to keep his cool. On Harry’s instruction, Ben Donberg’s two-seater fighter, also carrying a weapons systems officer, Captain Ben Hopkins, streaked towards the action zone with another F-15E at its side.

The soldier prince waited for his moment.

As the firing on the ground began to subside, Harry sent the two jets off around 10km away to drown out the aircraft noise, a move that would otherwise be sure to force the Taliban to take cover.

Within an hour, 15 Taliban fighters had emerged and could be seen in and around the area of the bunkers. Naively, they thought the danger had passed.

Not taking his eyes of his computer monitor, Harry made his move. He called the jets back and verified co-ordinates. Once ready, the pilots signalled in “hot” to the Prince.

Decisively, he gave them the final go-ahead with the words “cleared hot”.

Rainy images from an army Rover terminal screen showed what Harry saw as the pilots lined up the targets and dropped the first two 227kg bombs.

The third strike, another 227kg bomb, exploded moments after the first two, just as Taliban fighters emerged from cover in full view of the aircraft above.

It was December 30, 2007. It would be two months before Captain Donberg and his crew realised that the voice had belonged to Prince Harry.

Unbeknown to them, they had just executed the Prince’s first air strike. It was a memorable sortie, even without knowing that was Harry, Donberg said.

“No kidding. We were impressed by his proficiency level,” he said.

Harry kept his composure despite the obvious stress in his voice, the US officer confirmed.

It would be an experience Harry and Donberg, who had joined the US Air Force four years earlier, would never forget.

“I’ll take this experience with me for the rest of my career – I was vectored on to a target by Prince Harry,” Donberg said.”

About the Author

Robert Jobson is an award-winning journalist who has appeared as an analyst of Royal affairs on ABC, CBS, and NBC. He is the author of William’s Princess and the coauthor of Diana: Closely Guarded Secret.

Harry’s War: The True Story of Prince Harry’s Heroism in Afghanistan is available from all good book retailers.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 3:25 am and is filed under Prince Harry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.