AFP/Perth

 

 

Australia’s Governor-General Quentin Bryce talks with Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith after awarding him the Victoria Cross at an investiture ceremony at Campbell Barracks in Swanbourne, outside Perth

An Australian commando who stormed Taliban machine-gunners to save his platoon with no concern for his own safety has been awarded the country’s highest military honour, the Victoria Cross.

Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith, 32, was leading a mission in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province on June 11 last year when his men came under machine gun and rocket fire from a fortified insurgent post, wounding two soldiers.

Outnumbered by a ratio of about 4-1, the unit had to advance into a dense forest in search of the gunners and Roberts-Smith found himself in the direct line of fire, the men on either side unable to move for the hail of bullets.

“I just looked across, saw my mates getting ripped up and just decided to move forward, because I wasn’t going to sit there and do nothing,” the emotional career solider said after receiving his award yesterday.

“I thought I’d have a crack, I’m not going to let my mates down.”

Hoping to draw fire away from his men, Roberts-Smith deliberately showed himself to the enemy and crawled his way to the wall, killing one gunner with a sniper shot and single-handedly overpowering two other squads.

“He will always know, as we know now, that in the heat of battle he did not fail when mateship and duty called,” said Prime Minister Julia Gillard at yesterday’s award ceremony. “And though it might easily have cost him his life he was fully prepared to give it.”

Having received the Medal for Gallantry for an earlier mission in Afghanistan in 2006, Roberts-Smith is now the most highly decorated soldier in Australia.

He is only the second person to be awarded the VC for Australia, created as a separate award from the British VC in 1991.

Governor-General Quentin Bryce commended Roberts-Smith for “audacious courage and unswerving self-sacrifice” as she officially bestowed the conspicuous bravery award in Perth.

Gillard added: “You went to Afghanistan a soldier, you came back a hero.”

But the elite soldier, who has also served several missions in Iraq, said he accepted the honour for his Special Air Service unit, not himself.

“Every single bloke in that troop was at some stage fighting for their life, every single person there showed gallantry,” said Roberts-Smith.

“The decisions I saw made were heroic, watching some of my mates who had been wounded by frag (shrapnel) just keep on firing, just ignoring the fact that they were drawing fire to themselves.”

Last year was the deadliest on record for the 1,550-strong Australian deployment in Afghanistan, seeing 10 of its 21 deaths since 2001.

Roberts-Smith said it was those who gave their lives, the ultimate sacrifice, that deserved the real accolades.

“I hear the word hero a lot,” he said. “To me heroes are ... the guys that put their hand up willingly and they didn’t come back. They’re our mates and their families live with that every day.”

Just 98 Australians have received the VC, which is the highest military decoration in the Commonwealth.

SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson became the first solider to win a VC for Australia, also for bravery in Afghanistan, in 2009, after running through enemy fire during an ambush to rescue a wounded interpreter.

Donaldson was the first Australian soldier to be honoured with a VC since the Vietnam War.