While refusing to comment directly on three e-mails in which, among other criticisms, he described the RAF as “utterly useless” in its support of ground troops, Major Jamie Loden told The Times that his battalion had faced wave after wave of close-quarters combat from Taleban fighters trying to overrun their isolated base.

Major Loden, 33, commander of A Company of the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, said that their base in Sangin had been attacked 30 times in 34 days. His men had often slept in their body armour, their weapons by their sides, in temperatures as high as 60C (140F). Two men were killed and seven seriously wounded during the fighting. Despite the hardships, he said that morale remained high.

“Our whole ethos is of being surrounded, outnumbered and behind enemy lines — we are Parachute Regiment soldiers and we revel in that,” Major Loden said in A Company’s new base near Gereshk.

British military commanders will consider moves this week to stem the rush of damaging e-mails from frontline officers criticising the campaign. General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of General Staff, and senior defence officials spent the weekend trying to counter more leaked messages describing chaos in Helmand province and talking of shortfalls in manpower and weaponry.

So far no disciplinary action has been taken, but General Dannatt called Major Loden’s criticism of the RAF irresponsible. He has ordered commanders to stop such remarks, as well as allegations that Downing Street is running the campaign rather than the military. Officials have been told to see if the e-mails breach the Army’s code of behaviour.

Last week Major John Swift, serving with The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, said: “The scale of casualties has not been properly reported and shows no sign of reducing. Political and not military imperatives are being followed in this campaign.” The comments were taken from a Fusiliers’ website.

The latest leak came from a senior officer with 16 Air Assault Brigade, who told a Sunday newspaper that he was leaving the Army in disgust at the way troops in Afghanistan had been let down. The officer, who does not give his name, says that his men have had to borrow ammunition from Canadian troops. He is the second officer in three weeks to leave the Army over the campaign.

Major Loden sent his e-mails from the battle-scarred platoon house in Sangin, where the walls are pockmarked with bullet holes and shrapnel from rocket-propelled grenades.

Sergeant Dan Jarvie, 31, said that the Taleban onslaught had become more organised as time went on. At one stage Taleban fighters had rigged up a pulley system to raise a heavy gun and get a better firing position on the British positions. “Increasingly, they were getting outside expertise,” Major Loden said.

One thing the men will never forget is the noise of combat — the thud of grenades, the whiz of bullets overhead, the growl of the fighter jets and the ground-shaking bomb blasts. “If you weren’t scared there would be something wrong with you,” Sergeant Jarvie said, “but the training kicks in.”

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