The last British infantry soldiers to serve in Iraq, 79 soldiers from C Company, 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, returned home to their barracks in Germany this weekend.
The soldiers were greeted at their barracks in Paderborn on Saturday 16 May 2009 by dozens of cheering family members and friends.
The troops, nicknamed ‘The Armoured Tigers’, are part of the British Army’s 20th Armoured Brigade, the final combat brigade to serve in Iraq.
On Monday 11 May 2009, a few days before coming home, C Company helped complete the UK’s last combat mission in Iraq by providing security for the final convoy of 20th Armoured Brigade’s heavy military equipment to cross the border from Iraq into Kuwait.
The convoy, escorted by the men of D Squadron, Queen’s Royal Hussars (QRH), was met at the border by Brigadier Bilal Saleh Shkur, the Commander of the Iraqi Army’s 51st Brigade, who paid tribute to British forces, saying: “Thank you for all that you have given Iraq. Congratulations to all your comrades. Hopefully this will be your last mission.”
The convoy had departed the Contingency Operating Base in Basra some five hours earlier, with protective escorts provided by the Mastiff armoured vehicles of the QRH, as well as by other soldiers from across 20th Armoured Brigade, including 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (1 PWRR), 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment and 1st Royal Tank Regiment (1 RTR).
Piper Lee Watson, aged 23 serving with 1 RTR, piped the final British convoy across the border into Kuwait in the early hours of Monday morning.
The 93-vehicle convoy of combat vehicles and equipment took 14 minutes to pass through the border, with its load ranging from a huge container-grabbing ‘Wretch’ vehicle to trucks packed with various smaller items.
The Germany-based infantrymen from 1 PWRR spent the first five months of this operational deployment concentrating their efforts as a Military Transition Team (MiTT), training and mentoring the Iraqi Army’s 14th Division in Basra.
On returning to Paderborn this weekend, Officer Commanding C Company, Major Giles Francke, said: “I’m very proud and very happy to have got all my troops back. It’s good now to have closure on Iraq. We’ve been very much central to it, I believe, as a battalion, and it’s good to be back having done a good job.
“We’ve been involved in many of the significant events, from the provincial elections back in January where we were directly mentoring Iraqi Security Forces.
“We were there for the transfer of authority last month and then for the final extraction of the brigade – getting our equipment out and providing protection for that. Ours was the last vehicle over the border.
“From what I’ve seen, Iraq is definitely a better place. For a lot of the soldiers who saw Iraq in the early years to what they’ve seen in the last six months there’s a massive improvement. Basra is a very much more peaceful, pleasant place to be.”
19-year-old Private Brian Wottrich added: “It feels great to be back, it really does. It feels like I’m part of something, that I’ve done something historic. It’s a good feeling.”
Private Paul Mason, 18, said: “There’s a sense of achievement that we’ve finally completed our task out there. From what I’ve seen of the Iraqi Army, it seems like they’re a professional unit. We’ve taught them what we can and it’s up to them now to finish what we’ve started.”
Speaking in Basra before departing Iraq last week, 20th Armoured Brigade’s Commander, Brigadier Tom Beckett, said: “We should take pride because I think we’ve had a large and lasting contribution to Basra and to southern Iraq and none of us should forget that, not the people of this brigade and not the rest of the Army and not the rest of the Armed Services.
“Over the course of the six years, clearly what the British Army has done, and us as 20th Armoured Brigade over three separate tours, is rid Iraq of a tyrant, begin to reform the Iraqi Security Forces and face down a violent insurgency. We’ve then come out at the end of it having brought the Iraqi Security Forces to a position where they can provide their own security, and then in support of them bring security to the people of Basra.
“It’s a huge achievement for all of us. The naysayers will say there were bad times, but in any conflict the enemy has a will and he is trying to defeat you. So we have fought through the reverses and we’re now in the gains and we should take pride in the gains.”
The Armoured Tigers are the most decorated battalion in the British Army following their three tours of Iraq, having served there previously in 2004 and 2006.
Lance Corporal (then Private) Johnson Beharry of 1 PWRR became the first living recipient of the Victoria Cross for his exceptional bravery after his convoy was attacked in Al Amarah in 2004.
A number of other soldiers serving with the battalion received operational awards following their second tour of Iraq in 2006, including Colour Sergeant James Harkess who was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross and 19-year-old Army medic Private Michelle Norris who became the first female recipient of a Military Cross.
The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment is the County Regiment of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. The regimental headquarters are in Canterbury, but the 1st Battalion is currently stationed in the north German cathedral city of Paderborn with the remainder of 20th Armoured Brigade (The Iron Fist).
