Prince Harry‘s Apache helicopter instructor has claimed the Duke was wrong to reveal how many people he killed while in Afghanistan.
The Duke of Sussex went to Afghanistan as an infantryman in 2008, before training as a pilot and returning as an Apache gunner in 2012, when he was 27.
In his memoir Spare, Harry detailed that he had killed 25 Taliban fighters, writing: ‘Every kill was on video.
‘The Apache saw all. The camera in its nose recorded all. So, after every mission, there would be a careful review of that video.
‘I was part of six missions that ended in the taking of human life, and they were all deemed justified… I deemed them the same.’
The Prince also wrote that he did not think of those killed ‘as people’ but instead ‘chess pieces’ he had taken off the board.
Steve Jones, Harry’s Apache helicopter instructor, criticised the Duke for revealing his kill count, describing the individuals killed as ‘real people’ with families.
Prince Harry making his early morning pre-flight checks at the British controlled flight-line at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in December 2012
Prince Harry at the British controlled flight-line in Camp Bastion, southern Afghanistan, in 2012
‘It’s not what we’re about,’ he told The Telegraph. ‘We’re not here to say, »I did this, I did that.» It’s not a game. These are real people. They’ve got families.
‘I wouldn’t have made any comment. I get a very uneasy feeling for anybody who says »I killed 10». It’s not what should be said, at all.’
Mr Jones added: ‘But [Harry] did have a successful tour. It’s a shame he didn’t hang around to do more but I guess he ticked that box and scratched that itch and moved on.
‘I would say he’s stepped backwards in a way, from the way he was to [how he is] now.’
Nearly 10 years after leaving the army, Mr Jones is in the commercial industry, flying helicopters out to the oil rigs in the North Sea off the coast of Aberdeen.
He also praised Harry for his work in the military, saying: ‘I’ve had people say he only passed because of who he is.
‘Nothing could be further from the truth. He definitely played hard, but he would work hard as well.’
Prince Harry ‘s Apache helicopter instructor has claimed the Duke was wrong to reveal how many people he killed while in Afghanistan
Prince Harry with his wife Meghan Markle or the Invictus Games Dusseldorf 2023
Last year the Duke – who was known as ‘Captain Wales’ in the military – wrote that he did not consider those killed ‘as people’ but instead ‘chess pieces’ he had removed from the board.
It was the first time Harry had specified the number of insurgents he personally killed during his time in Afghanistan, where he went in both 2007-8 and 2012 and flew an Apache attack helicopter during his second tour.
In Spare, the Prince said that he flew on six missions that resulted in the ‘taking of human lives’ in his leaked autobiography.
While many soldiers do not know how many enemies they have killed in combat, the Duke wrote that ‘in the era of Apaches and laptops’ he was able to say ‘with exactness’ the number of insurgents he killed.
Harry wrote that ‘you can’t kill people if you see them as people’ and said he instead saw them as ‘chess pieces removed from the board’… ‘bad guys eliminated’.
