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1st Bn, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/18/nvc218.xml
'I bayoneted people. It was me or them'
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated:
12:38am GMT 18/03/2005
The daring and bravery shown in Iraq by the men of 1 Bn, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment were so outstanding that their battlegroup receives no fewer than 37 of the honours awarded today.
They include 33 gallantry awards, among them the Victoria Cross awarded to Pte Johnson Beharry, two Conspicuous Gallantry Crosses, the second highest award for gallantry, 10 Military Crosses and 17 Mentions in Dispatches.
The succession of heroic actions under fire included the first bayonet charge since the Falklands Conflict and the 23-day defence of the former governor's residence in Amarah under siege from a continuous attack.
The gallantry awards have made the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (PWRR) the most decorated in the history of the British Army, with a total of 57 Victoria Crosses and a host of other medals.
Although formed in only 1992, it is the senior English regiment of the line, tracing its history back to 1572, and its forebear regiments have fought in virtually all the major campaigns in which the Army has taken part.
Lt-Col Matt Maer, CO of 1 Bn, the PWRR, described yesterday how his men were forced to fight every day for five months in Iraq, coming under 860 separate attacks, with 109 alone on one day.
On the first day of their deployment they found themselves drawn into a three-hour running battle with insurgents, he said. "We knew it was going to be a very long and very hot summer."
The steadfast defence by Y Company of the former provincial governor's residence in Amarah saw a number of Military Crosses awarded to the battlegroup, which also included Royal Welch Fusiliers.
Major Justin Featherstone, the Y company commander, who, despite repeatedly being told he could withdraw if he saw fit refused to do so, is among the 10 members of the battlegroup awarded the Military Cross.
But it was inevitably the bayonet charge, led by Sgt Chris Broome, from Trowbridge, Wilts, who is awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, that captured the imagination.
The three-hour battle during which it took place began on May 14 last year when a dozen gunmen ambushed nine soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in a pair of armoured Land Rovers.
The Argylls were attacked on the road to Amarah, with insurgents repeatedly attacking the vehicles with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
The Land Rovers sped through the ambushes only to come upon two dozen insurgents putting together an improvised roadside bomb.
Two platoons of the PWRR, a total of 40 men in four Warrior armoured vehicles, were sent from nearby Camp Condor to hunt down the bombers.
When they saw the insurgents waiting in ambush in foxholes alongside the road, the four infantry sections in the Warriors, 28 men in all, dismounted, carried out a flanking manoeuvre and charged the insurgents with fixed bayonets.
Cpl Mark Byles, 34, from Portsmouth, who is awarded the Military Cross, said: "The look on their faces was utter shock. They were under the impression we were going to lie in our ditch, shoot from a distance and they would run away.
"I slashed people, rifle-butted them. I was punching and kicking. It was either me or them. It didn't seem real. Anybody can pull a trigger from a distance, but we got up close and personal."
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20040613/ai_n12756624
Young soldier in line for Iraq Victoria Cross
Robert Fox
A 19-year-old soldier is to be recommended for the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest gallantry decoration, after driving his blazing vehicle through an ambush, saving the lives of its injured commander and crew in southern Iraq last month.
During the battle that lasted several hours, men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders carried out the first bayonet charge by British troops since the Falklands conflict 22 years ago.
The young soldier is believed to be from the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, whose units have been supporting the Argylls around Amara in southern Iraq.
On 15 May, a patrol of vehicles was setting out to resupply one of the British outposts south of Amara when it was attacked on three sides by the Army of the Mehdi, the militia loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
"It was a very well prepared ambush. In all there were at least 160 militia men involved," said a military source close to the regiment yesterday. As the British convoy came under attack, a rapid reaction force supplied by the Princess of Wales Regiment was mobilised and rushed to the area.
The vehicles were then attacked from a second position where a roadblock had been set up to trap any British troops trying to make a getaway from the first ambush position. According to reports from the ground the young driver decided to crash the roadblock though his vehicle, believed to be a personnel carrier, was ablaze and its commander and crew were injured.
Though still being hit by machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenades, the driver succeeded in crashing through the barrier and led the way for the rest of the convoy to get to safety. He then unloaded the wounded and made sure they were tended by medical orderlies before remounting his burning vehicle and driving it to where it could cause little harm if the fuel and ammunition still aboard blew up. He drew a fire extinguisher to tackle the blaze before he was taken away to have his own wounds treated.
When a platoon of Argylls still trapped in the first ambush position ran out of ammunition, they then carried out a bayonet charge to clear their positions.
No Victoria Crosses have been awarded since those won by Staff Sergeant Ian MacKay and Lt-Col Herbert Jones in the Falklands in 1982.
According to sources in Iraq the young driver's performance fulfils all the criteria. The name of the young soldier is being withheld by the Army.