UK soldiers 'like sitting ducks'

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A British officer killed in Afghanistan reportedly complained of equipment shortages to his fiancee just days before his death in a rocket attack.

Capt David Hicks, 26, from Berkshire, told Nicola Billen the troops had been "sitting ducks" for the Taleban.

She told the Daily Telegraph his demands for kit went unheeded.

On Monday, the coroner at the inquest into his death said troops at his remote base in Helmand had made do with "unacceptable" protection.

Miss Billen said her fiance, from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, had regularly voiced his frustration in letters and conversations.

'Niggling problems'

She said he had not specified what was missing, but had said: "I keep asking for things and I'm not getting them".

He had told her about a helicopter shortage, which had hit supplies so badly on one occasion that they had to stop firing mortar rounds to preserve ammunition .

"It is ridiculous that we have to make do," he added.

On several occasions he had asked for a doctor to be sent to the remote Inkerman base, north of Sangin.

In a letter to 32-year-old Miss Billen, just two days before he was killed, he wrote: "It still remains pretty busy at the minute with a few niggling problems that concern me but I won't go into them now."

In a final phone call to his fiancee, minutes before he was killed, he said: "I'm not taking any unnecessary risks but we are being attacked twice a day - it's just too much, we can't keep going like this."

Miss Billen said: "Then we started talking about other things and then the explosion went off and he said 'Sweetheart I have got to go. I will speak to you later. I love you'."

Capt Hicks, from Wokingham, Berkshire, died after sustaining shrapnel wounds at the remote base on 11 August last year.

Proper protection

Coroner David Masters described how Capt Hicks drifted in and out of consciousness and pleaded with medics to allow him to rejoin the battle.

David was let down because there was not enough men out there and they weren't properly protected Nicola Billen

He was flown to a medical facility but did not survive. Capt Hicks was awarded a posthumous Military Cross.

He could have returned to the UK weeks before his death as he had handed in his resignation, but chose to stay on until his six-month tour was finished.

The inquest had heard that protective walls were too low, soldiers slept under netting and there was no doctor at the base.

After hearing protection had since been improved and a doctor was now on site, the coroner said he did not need to make recommendations to the government.

Miss Billen said she had spoken out for the first time because her "suspicions" of poor funding for kit on the frontline were only confirmed at the inquest.

"I feel compelled to say something because David would have wanted me to say something," she said.

"David was let down because there was not enough men out there and they weren't properly protected."