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F-15s made Prince Harry’s 1st airstrikes

Forward Operating Base Delhi, a gritty and violent Afghanistan outpost set deep inside Taliban country, was taking fire from multiple sides.

Observing the action from a fortified post, a joint terminal attack controller with the code name “Widow Six Seven” needed close-air support.

He patched through to Capt. Ben Donberg, an American F-15E pilot cruising overhead. In a lilting but adrenaline-fueled British accent, Widow Six Seven guided Donberg and a companion F-15 pilot to the entrenched Taliban fighters for one, two and, finally, three rounds of laser-guided bomb strikes.

That was Dec. 30. It would be two months before Donberg and his crew realized that the voice belonged to the United Kingdom’s Prince Harry.

They had just executed his first airstrike.

The world now knows that Prince Harry, 23, third in line to the throne, was pulled out of his Afghanistan tour with the British army in late February. But Donberg and other Strike Eagle pilots in the U.S. Air Force’s 336th Fighter Squadron, based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., were clueless about the prince’s presence during their own Operation Enduring Freedom tours.

They were accustomed to defending FOB Delhi, the scrappy British garrison in Helmand province, dense with opium fields and Islamic militants.

“Helmand is one of Afghanistan’s hotter areas,” said Col. Dan DeBree, who, at the time of Harry’s tour, served as vice commander of Bagram Airfield, the nerve center for Afghanistan air operations.

FOB Delhi is the southernmost coalition foothold in one of the country’s three most southerly provinces. Daily, it’s pelted by AK47 fire and quaked by mortars shot over a 500-meter wasteland separating allied troops from Taliban entrenchments. “It’s very remote,” DeBree said. “That’s where air power comes in. It enables them to have small forces because they know they can count on an F-15E.”

Firefights broke out at FOB Delhi on Dec. 30. The Taliban first shot at Gurkha troops, a rugged British military detachment of Nepalese fighters. The British artillery lobbed rounds to force the Taliban back. And Widow Six Seven, after days of monitoring Taliban movement via unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance feeds, was cleared to communicate with a couple of Yankee F-15E Strike Eagles.

Donberg’s two-seater fighter, also carrying weapons systems officer Capt. Ben Hopkins, streaked toward the action with another F-15E at its side.

After confirming the region was clear of civilians and allied troops, Prince Harry guided several rounds of 500-pound bombs onto Taliban targets. Some were aimed at GPS coordinates, Donberg said, and the prince helped the aircrew visually sight and strike other militants.

“It was a memorable sortie, even without knowing that was Prince Harry,” Donberg said. “No kidding. We were impressed by his proficiency level.” Harry, he said, kept his composure despite the “adrenaline and stress” in his voice.

Harry, the equivalent of a second lieutenant, conducted at least two or three F-15E strikes with the 336th Fighter Squadron in the following weeks, Donberg said. Photos have surfaced of Harry, with tousled ginger hair and a touch of soldierly scruff, tracking the Taliban via video feeds from Desert Hawk miniature drones overhead.

Harry and his crew called it “Taliban TV,” according to British media. The overhead roar of fighter jets typically sent the militants scrambling. “Terry Taliban and his mates, as soon as they hear air, they go to ground, which makes life a little bit tricky,” Harry told the British newspaper The Guardian.

Despite FOB Delhi’s bleak and bloody conditions, Harry said his tour in Afghanistan made “all his wishes come true.” And Donberg, who joined the Air Force four years ago, said he’ll “take this experience with me for the rest of my career, the rest of my life.”

Harry, now back in England, has also told reporters he’s itching to return to theater. His elder brother, Prince William, 25, also commissioned in the British army, is slated to deploy on a British navy frigate later this year, according to London-based newspaper The Sun.

“This is a guy that didn’t have to go,” DeBree said. “But he was in there, in the trenches, with the rank and file doing his job.”