VC hero Mark Donaldson with his wife Emma and two children Kaylee, 7 and Hamish, 2. Picture: Ross Swanborough Source: PerthNow
VC hero Mark Donaldson and other members of Australia's elite Special Air Services Regiment (SAS) unit were instructed to take out a Taliban warlord who had spoken of his intention to kill Prince Harry.
The threat to the prince was made by a fighter codenamed Javelin in Afghanistan in 2008.
Intelligence supplied to the SAS said Javelin had allegedly vowed to kill Prince Harry if given the chance.
On a spring night in August 2008 the Aussie soldiers used the veil of darkness to slip into the compound where Javelin was based, but the warlord got away.
A year later the Perth-based Victoria Cross recipient and other SAS members returned to the same area and killed Javelin and other high-ranking Taliban leaders.
The revelations are in Donaldson's new book The Crossroad, which will hit bookshelves this week. As well as the Prince Harry mission the father-of-two also reveals:
How his mother is "presumed murdered" and her body has never being found;
How he lost his father at 16 to a heart attack; and
His threat to quit the army if he wasn't allowed back on the frontline after being awarded his VC.
Of the Prince Harry assignment Donaldson writes: "Towards the end of August (2008), we flew by Chinook to a place called Paygolkar, to go after two targets codenamed Longbow and Javelin.
"Javelin had been saying he was going to take out Prince Harry when he (Prince Harry) went over there, and they were supposed to be important Taliban commanders."
Prince Harry spent 10 weeks in Afghanistan from December 2007 to February 2008. The fourth-in-line to the throne had to be withdrawn after a media embargo was broken breaching his security. He wouldn't serve again until 2012, but by then Javelin was dead, courtesy of an SAS bullet.When asked this week about the Prince Harry job, Donaldson explained how it played out.
"In 2009 one of the other guys in the (SAS) troop got him (Javelin) in the exact same place (that we targeted the year before)," the 34-year-old said.
"Initially, we got some intelligence that Javelin had said he'd target Prince Harry when Prince Harry first went to Afghanistan. It was some intelligence we got, whether he said that, who knows, but it was definitely what we heard at the time. It came out through intelligence that he (Javelin) had stated what he said. It was not really a focal point of his 'intel' picture, more so just 'intel' evidence gathered on him.
"We went there in 2008 but he (Javelin) slipped the net. Almost a year later in an exact same type of job, at the exact time of night (we got Javelin). A group of (our) guys (got him) from a different angle shrinking in to the compound."
A spokesperson at Cambridge House declined to comment on Prince Harry's behalf.
Donaldson met Prince Harry when the young royal visited SAS headquarters in Swanbourne on October 6.
While he is seen as a hero for his actions on the frontline, Donaldson says his mother's death has stained his life with sadness. He had just turned 19 when he was told his mum, Bernadette, was missing and that police suspected foul play. Though her body has never been found a coronial inquest in 2009 concluded it was probable that a man named Chris Watt had murdered her. DNA from blood found in Watt's car revealed it was Mrs Donaldson's.
But the formal findings have never healed Mark's hidden wounds."(The 2009) inquest was closure in one aspect in that everything pointed to Watt as the person who did it," Donaldson said this week.
"We always suspected it but at least this was an official decision. But that's half closing a book. Where is she? She hasn't got a resting place.
"It's not really closure as such for myself. But I try not to dwell on it. When I think of Mum I think of all the things I've missed out on telling her and the experiences Brent (his older brother) and I and our families have had without her knowing."
The Crossroad is a rare insight into the life of an SAS soldier. To write it, Donaldson received permission from his chain of command, which is the standard policy and procedure for serving ADF members.
He said that even before he was awarded a VC he felt his story was worth telling, after overcoming tough teenage years to emerge a self-disciplined family man.
He's hoping the book will inspire anyone who feels they may be struggling to believe in themselves and the future.
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