At a ceremony held at Campbell Barracks in WA over the weekend, a sniper from the elite Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) has received the Victoria Cross for Australia.
Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG (‘RS’) earned the Commonwealth’s highest military honor for his bravery during a 13-hour-long firefight in Afghanistan last year.
With the Medal for Gallantry that he received in 2006, the VC now establishes him as the most decorated active soldier in the Australian Army. While identities of SASR personnel are typically classified, the Army has permitted RS to emerge from the secretive realm of the Special Forces to share his remarkable story of heroism.
The VC is awarded for his actions during a battle in June 2010, when RS and around 25 SASR soldiers conducted an aerial assault into the Shah Wali Kot area of Southern Afghanistan, a region recognized as a Taliban stronghold. Upon immediately coming under intense fire, RS, alongside two others, made their way toward three Taliban machine gun positions where they found themselves pinned down. Courageously, RS charged across 40 meters of open ground directly at the Taliban positions, neutralizing all three guns and their operators. Following this, he methodically returned, continuing to take out enemy positions. Reflecting on his actions, he stated, “I looked over and saw my mates getting ripped up, and I wasn’t going to do nothing. So I thought I’d have a crack.”
Previously awarded Australia’s third-highest honor, the Medal for Gallantry, in 2006 for fending off a significant Taliban assault with nothing but his sniper rifle, during that engagement, one comrade recalls, “RS just tore a Taliban fighter off his back like an insect, stood on his throat, and shot him dead.” It was during this same battle that RS and his teammate were attributed to around 60 Taliban fatalities.
Now, Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG joins a very elite group of living Victoria Cross recipients, increasing the total number to 11. Throughout nearly a decade of warfare in Afghanistan, only four Victoria Crosses have been awarded: one to a British soldier, one to a New Zealander, and two to Australians.
by Mike Hansom
