Refused to be Beaten

Since the end of the Second World War, the VC has been awarded 15 times: four in the Korean War, one in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation in 1965, four to Australians in the Vietnam War, two during the Falklands War in 1982, one in the Iraq War in 2004

On 16 March 2013, the Ministry of Defence announced the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross to Lance Corporal James Ashworth.It was then only the second Victoria Cross awarded for service in Afghanistan.Aged 23, Lance Corporal James Ashworth, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was on his second tour of Afghanistan when he was killed during an advance on an insurgent position that was engaged in a deadly battle with the rest of his platoon on the outskirts of Gereshk, the capital town of the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand Province.

On 13 June 2012, the recently promoted Lance Corporal and his Reconnaissance Platoon were inserted by Chinook helicopter to participate in an operation with Afghan forces intended to neutralise an insurgent sniper team. The platoon came under fire as soon as it landed.

Lance Corporal Ashworth immediately raced 300 yards into the heart of the insurgent-held village with his fire team. Two insurgents were killed, and two sniper rifles were recovered during this initial assault. However, an Afghan Local Police follow-up stalled when an Afghan patrolman was shot and killed by the fleeing enemy.

Corporal Ashworth insisted on moving to the front of his fire team as they continued their advance on an enemy-held compound within the village. Stepping over the body of the dead patrolman, he threw a grenade and the team surged forward into the compound, quickly driving the insurgents back to an outbuilding.

The guardsmen were now taking automatic and machine-gun fire from several positions by insurgents desperate to protect their sniper team. Ashworth knew his platoon needed to detain or kill the final sniper, now pinned down by the lead fire team, and extract as soon as possible.

Dropping down, Ashworth scrambled

across the compound floor and crawled behind a low, knee-high, wall that ran parallel to the front of the outbuilding.

The wall provided just enough cover to conceal his prostrate body as he inched his way forward, on his stomach, armed with his last grenade with which he hoped to finally silence the deadly sniper.

As he slowly dragged himself over the ground a fierce firefight broke out above his head, and although the enemy could not see him, he was still not safe from the flying bullets.

Undaunted, he edged forward in his painstaking advance till he was within five yards of the insurgents’ position.

Desperate to ensure that his last grenade landed accurately, Lance Corporal Ashworth then deliberately crawled out from behind the low wall and scrambled up onto his knees to get a better angle for the throw.

Now in full view of an insurgent gunman, just five yards away, bullets started to tear up the ground around Ashworth.

Undeterred, Lance Corporal Ashworth pulled the pin from his grenade. Just as he prepared to throw it, he was hit by enemy fire; moments after he fell,

the hand grenade exploded beside him causing catastrophic injures in addition to having been hit by rifle fire.

The body of Lance Corporal Ashworth was repatriated to RAF Brize Norton on 20 June and a funeral service was held, with full military honours, at Our Lady’s Church in his hometown of Corby, Northamptonshire, on 3 July where hundreds of people lined the streets to pay their respects.

James Ashworth’s Victoria Cross was the penultimate award of the supreme award for valour in Afghanistan.

His award, and that of the other two VC recipients from the conflict in Afghanistan, had upheld the finest traditions of British forces and the long history of exemplary courage that had been maintained ever since the very first Victoria Cross was awarded on 21 June 1854 to Mate Charles David Lucas serving on board HMS Hecla.

The Victoria Cross story is one that will continue to endure and inspire across centuries, and it is a history filled with examples of the most extreme instances of bravery, endeavour, skill, daring, selfsacrifice, and human endurance that has ever been faced, against all the odds, by the fighting men of Britain, her Empire, Commonwealth, and Allies.

(© Crown Copyright 2013) ■ Lance Corporal James Thomas Duane Ashworth VC was identified during the early part of his service as being capable of becoming a paratrooper and was assigned to the Guards’ Parachute Platoon, part of 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment. In his three years in the platoon, he took part in Operation Herrick 8 and was deployed to exercises overseas on three occasions. He was deployed to Canada before joining the Reconnaissance Platoon for Operation Herrick 16. He was only the tenth soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross since the Second World War.

■ Right: A soldier of the 1st Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment observing a suspect insurgent compound whilst on patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand Province. During this tour 1 Yorks were stationed at PB (Patrol Base) Rahim to the north of Gereshk, the same PB from which the assault of 13 June 2012 was launched. (© Crown Copyright 2013)

■ Left: British troops on board a Chinook of the RAF pictured en-route to be inserted into Taliban territory during 2012. (© Crown Copyright 2013)

(R J Mannford) ■ Left: The repatriation of Corporal James Ashworth’s body to RAF Brize Norton on 20 June 2012. Such scenes became all too familiar to the British public as casualties in the conflict mounted.