DANIEL KEIGHRAN
THE FIRST MEMBER OF THE RAR TO BE AWARDED THE VC 1983- CORPORAL
Although Mark Donaldson and Benjamin Roberts-smith are both former RAR personnel who have subsequently won the Victoria Cross, Daniel Keighran is the first VC recipient to receive the award while serving in the regiment.
Keighran joined the Australian Army on 5 December 2000 and was posted to 6 RAR after his initial training. Between 2001-06 Keighran was deployed to Malaysia, Timor-leste and Iraq, before eventually serving in Afghanistan between 2007-10.
It was during his second Afghanistan deployment that Keighran (by then a corporal) was awarded the Victoria Cross. On 24 August 2010 Keighran was part of a combined Afghan-australian fighting patrol that engaged a numerically superior force of Taliban insurgents, in an encounter that later became known as the ‘Battle of Derapet’.
The patrol came under attack from heavy machine gun and small arms fire, but Keighran moved forward and deliberately drew enemy attention onto himself to help identify targets. Keighran continually moved around an exposed ridge, leading his team and directing fire while constantly under attack. At one point, Keighran moved 100 metres (109 yards) over the ridge and exposed his position four times, drawing attention away from a medical team that was treating an Australian casualty. During the battle it was noted that Keighran repeatedly fought with “exceptional courage” and a “complete disregard for his own safety.” The fight at Derapet ended as an Afghanaustralian victory, with only one Australian fatality compared to at least 30 Taliban dead.
Keighran’s VC citation concluded that, “His valour is in keeping with the finest traditions of the Australian Army”, and he was subsequently invested with the award in Canberra on 1 November 2012 for “the most conspicuous acts of gallantry and extreme devotion to duty in action in circumstances of great peril at Derapet”. Keighran continues to serve in the Australian Army Reserves.