A British soldier is to be awarded the Victoria Cross on Thursday for helping rescue a joint UK-US force in danger of being overrun by the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
Lance Corporal Joshua Leakey, 27, of the Parachute Regiment, ran across an exposed hillside raked with machine-gun fire three times to arrange the evacuation of casualties, rally his comrades, return fire and retake the initiative. Eleven Taliban fighters were killed.
It is only the 15th time the military award, the highest in Britain, has been made since the second world war. It is also almost 70 years since another member of Leakey’s family won the Victoria Cross.
Leakey, from Hampshire, will be at a ceremony at Lancaster House in London along with 13 others receiving medals in recognition of their courage and service. He will receive the medal at a later investiture ceremony.
Asked about his relative who won the same award, he said: “It’s from my dad’s side of the family. They are all very military-orientated. There’s been someone in the military from every generation that I know of.
“I’ve got a bit of a mad family, you could say. There’s a lot of eccentric people.”
Leakey’s second cousin twice removed, Sergeant Nigel Gray Leakey, won this medal for action during the second world war in Africa in May 1945.
The Victoria Cross, first awarded for bravery during the Crimea war in 1854, is for “most conspicuous bravery … in the presence of the enemy”.
According to the MoD, Leakey was part of a US-UK helicopter raid on a Taliban stronghold at Bar Now Zad in Helmand on 22 August 2013. On leaving the helicopters, they immediately found themselves pinned down by machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
A US Marine Corps captain was shot and their communications were put out of action. After an hour, Leakey ran across the hillside, gained the crest and saw comrades from two machine-gun teams surrounded by about 20 Taliban and unable to provide covering fire.
He was the most junior member of the group, but he took control, gave first aid to the wounded US captain and began the process of evacuation. He went back down the hill, took control of one of the machine-guns, even though it had bullets ricocheting off its frame at the time, and then took off again down the hillside.
Leakey, who joined 1 Para in 2007 and has done three tours in Afghanistan, said: “This award is brilliant, but it’s also something I’m accepting on behalf of my regiment and my battalion, of which I’m so proud.”
After the Lancaster House ceremony, Leakey is to go with other award recipients to Downing Street to meet David Cameron and other members of the cabinet.
Cameron said: “When you hear how events unfolded and the intensity of enemy fire, it is difficult to imagine how one wouldn’t be frozen to the spot and yet Lance Corporal Leakey risked his life to run across that barren hillside not just once, but multiple times, to turn the battle and save the lives of comrades.”
It is the third Victoria Cross awarded for action in the latest Afghanistan conflict, but the previous two were posthumous. The medal has been awarded 1,363 times, according to the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association.
