The Duke of Sussex has said he was willing to risk being taken prisoner in Afghanistan to carry out his first Apache helicopter mission.
Harry, writing in his memoir Spare, said he had been prepared to ignore a ‘land now’ warning light in his helicopter cockpit which meant an operation during his second frontline tour in 2012 had to be abandoned.
The duke said a more experienced flier turned them back to Camp Bastion in Helmand province, leaving Harry feeling cheated.
‘I wanted to go, go, go. I was willing to risk crashing, being taken prisoner – whatever,” he said.
Harry’s admission in his book that he killed 25 Taliban members during the war in Afghanistan sparked protests in Helmand over the weekend and criticism from former military figures.
He has written in depth about his military experience overseas, describing how he narrowly escaped being hit by a huge explosion during his first stint in the country in 2007-08.
‘I felt it in my brain. I looked around. Everyone was on their stomachs,’ he said.
He recalled one of his comrades whispering again and again: ‘F*** me, that was close.’
On his second tour, for which he retrained as an Apache helicopter pilot, the duke recalled: ‘I was the first in my squadron to pull the trigger in anger.’
In a military context, to ‘fire in anger’ means to shoot for a purpose in war.
Harry said he had killed before but it was “my most direct contact with the enemy ever” as he targeted Taliban fighters riding motorbikes.
