PRINCE HARRY arrived home from Afghanistan yesterday insisting he was “no hero” and pointing to two badly wounded soldiers who returned on the same aircraft as “the real heroes”.

His forced extraction from war-ravaged Helmand province raises new doubts about his future in the army. He will be bitterly disappointed not just at his early withdrawal from frontline operations but also at the insistence of General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, that there is no “immediate prospect” of him going “anywhere else” for at least 18 months.

The prince has made it clear that he will not stay in uniform unless he can serve alongside his men. He is unlikely to be happy with a single token deployment while they are repeatedly sent to battle.

He insisted yesterday that he planned to stay but added that he had already told his commanding officer that he wanted to go back on operations “very, very soon”.

Royal warrior sees off the sneerers

His frontline duty against ‘Terry Taliban’ has been the making of Harry – even parts of the Arab media have been impressed

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• Pictures: Prince Harry in Helmand

“I know there’s a lot of people thinking, ‘Well, you’ve done it once. Now you’ve got the medal why would you ever want to go back again?’ ” he said.

“At the end of the day, if you’re not there and someone from your regiment or a mate of yours, if something were to happen to them, realistically you would feel indirectly guilty.”

His aircraft flew into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire late yesterday morning after stopping off in Birmingham to allow the two soldiers seriously wounded in a landmine explosion to be taken to the military ward at the city’s Selly Oak hospital. “I’m no more a hero than anyone else. If you think about it, there’s thousands and thousands of troops out there,” the 23-year-old prince said.

The bravery he had seen among his fellow troops had been “humbling”. “There were two injured guys who came back on the plane with us who were essentially comatose throughout the whole way,” he said. “One had lost two limbs – a left arm and a right leg – and another guy who was saved by his mate’s body being in the way but took shrapnel to the neck.

“Those are the heroes. Those were guys who had been blown up by a mine that they had no idea about, serving their country, doing a normal patrol. It is a bit of a choke in your throat because you know that it’s happening.”

His safe arrival back in the UK coincided with increased rocket attacks on the British base at Basra in southern Iraq in which an RAF airman was killed. The Ministry of Defence did not release his name but said relatives had been informed.

The Prince of Wales, who was at Brize Norton together with Prince William, said he was “enormously proud” of his younger son and now understood what the families and loved ones of soldiers endured when they were serving abroad. “As you can imagine it’s obviously a great relief as far as I’m concerned to see him home in one piece,” Prince Charles said. “I know what it’s like when they’re so far away and it’s much worse in a way for those left behind.”

He was speaking as the MoD confirmed that Prince William, who is second in line to the throne, would also be sent on operations abroad, albeit on board ship while serving with the Royal Navy. “It’s our intention to give Prince William as full a taste of life in the Royal Navy as possible,” a spokesman said.

Prince Harry said his brother would have loved to be deployed in Afghanistan and was “jealous” that Harry had beaten him to it. “I know he’d love to, whether it’s on the ground or whether it’s 15,000ft up, bombs strapped to the wings,” he said.

If William does serve on military operations abroad and goes on to become king, he will be the first monarch to have taken part in full military action since King George VI, who served as a naval officer at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.

Prince Harry worked on the front line as a forward air controller, directing coalition air attacks onto Taliban targets. At one point, he was filmed firing a heavy machinegun at Taliban insurgents across a 500-yard stretch of no-man’s-land at Garmsir, in southern Helmand.

When the news leaked out that he was in Afghanistan, he was leading a two-vehicle armoured reconnaissance detachment as part of a USled assault on a Taliban base near Musa Qala. Seated in the turret of a Spartan armoured reconnaissance vehicle, he was directing attacks by French air force Mirage ground attack aircraft called up at the request of US commanders. Neither the US commanders nor the French pilots knew who he was.

He admitted to being “slightly disappointed” his deployment was over. “I thought I could see it through to the end and come back with our guys and the colonel himself. But I’m back here now and I suppose deep down inside it’s quite nice, I’m looking forward to having a bath. But no, I would like to have stayed.”

His efforts were praised yesterday by Gordon Brown. “The whole country is going to be delighted that Prince Harry has come back safely. We are very grateful to him for all the work he has done in Afghanistan, very grateful to all the soldiers in Afghanistan,” he said.

However, the publicity about his service in Afghanistan has already led police to review his personal security amid threats from Islamic militants. It makes it unlikely he will enjoy the same freedom as before, openly attending West End night clubs.

Read more on Mick Smith's blog

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