Manning a powerful .50 calibre machine gun for the first time, Prince Harry helped Gurkha troops repel an insurgent attack on the southernmost British position in Helmand.

Crouching on sandbags, an open box of ammunition at the ready next to him, the prince pumped rounds across 500 metres of cratered no-man’s-land using only distant puffs of smoke as his target.

Trained as a battlefield air controller, Harry was working on JTAC Hill, a heavily defended British position within sight of Taliban trenches, when 16 to 20 Taliban were spotted moving forward, preparing to attack.

As a Gurkha rifleman fired off a Javelin missile the order went out to man the machine guns.

In the ensuing rush it was Harry who claimed one of them, seizing the chance to put his training into practice.

“This is the first time I’ve fired a .50 cal,” he admitted with a smile.

Wearing earplugs to protect his hearing, the third-in-line to the throne gritted his teeth as he concentrated on his target.

“It’s just no man’s land ... they poke their heads up and that’s it,” he says.

Peering through an arch of sandbags over the abandoned farmland, a shredded piece of sack cloth hanging in front provided the only cover for his firing position.

But next to him, a Gurkha soldier happily filmed his debut on the “.50 cal” on Harry’s own hand held camera.

Like thousands of other British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, the prince has a lively private collection of video clips filmed during his tour.

Half a kilometre away lay “Line Taunton”, the heavily fortified trench system marking the start of a Taliban-controlled area extending as far south as the Pakistani border.

“The whole place is just deserted, there are no roofs on any of the compounds, there are craters all over the place, it looks like something out of the Battle of the Somme,” he remarked.

Harry’s immediate boss, Major Mark Milford, Officer Commanding B Company of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, watched the prince.

“This is the southern border for the coalition troops, this is about as dangerous as it can get,” he said.

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