# Private Johnson Beharry



## big bad john (24 Oct 2005)

The following is the BBC article on Johnson Beharry VC.  I haven't sen anything mentioned on him in the canadian media, so I posted a cople of pics in th ePhoto Gallery and this article FYI.  There are amazing things happening in the world today.


A 'great hero' who saved comrades  

"His level-headed actions almost certainly saved the lives of his crew" 
Private Johnson Beharry has been awarded the Victoria Cross. The full citation reads as follows: 
 Private Beharry carried out two individual acts of great heroism by which he saved the lives of his comrades. 

Both were in direct face of the enemy, under intense fire, at great personal risk to himself (one leading to him sustaining very serious injuries). 

His valour is worthy of the highest recognition. 

In the early hours of the 1st May 2004 Beharry's company was ordered to replenish an isolated Coalition Forces' outpost located in the centre of the troubled city of Al Amarah. 

He was the driver of a platoon commander's Warrior armoured fighting vehicle. 

His platoon was the company's reserve force and was placed on immediate notice to move. 

  The vehicle was hit again by sustained rocket-propelled grenade attack from insurgent fighters in the alleyways and on rooftops around his vehicle 


As the main elements of his company were moving into the city to carry out the replenishment, they were re-tasked to fight through a series of enemy ambushes in order to extract a foot patrol that had become pinned down under sustained small arms and heavy machine-gun fire and improvised explosive device and rocket-propelled grenade attack. 

Beharry's platoon was tasked over the radio to come to the assistance of the remainder of the company, who were attempting to extract the isolated foot patrol. 

Insurgent ambush 

As his platoon passed a roundabout, en route to the pinned-down patrol, they became aware that the road to the front was empty of all civilians and traffic - an indicator of a potential ambush ahead. 

The platoon commander ordered the vehicle to halt, so that he could assess the situation. 

The vehicle was then immediately hit by multiple rocket-propelled grenades. 

Eyewitnesses report that the vehicle was engulfed in a number of violent explosions, which physically rocked the 30-tonne Warrior. 

  He did not know if his commander or crewmen were still alive, or how serious their injuries may be 


As a result of this ferocious initial volley of fire, both the platoon commander and the vehicle's gunner were incapacitated by concussion and other wounds, and a number of the soldiers in the rear of the vehicle were also wounded. 

Due to damage sustained in the blast to the vehicle's radio systems, Beharry had no means of communication with either his turret crew or any of the other Warrior vehicles deployed around him. 

He did not know if his commander or crewmen were still alive, or how serious their injuries may be. 

Own initiative 

In this confusing and dangerous situation, on his own initiative, he closed his driver's hatch and moved forward through the ambush position to try to establish some form of communications, halting just short of a barricade placed across the road. 

The vehicle was hit again by sustained rocket-propelled grenade attack from insurgent fighters in the alleyways and on rooftops around his vehicle. 

Further damage to the Warrior from these explosions caused it to catch fire and fill rapidly with thick, noxious smoke. Beharry opened up his armoured hatch cover to clear his view and orientate himself to the situation. 

He still had no radio communications and was now acting on his own initiative, as the lead vehicle of a six Warrior convoy in an enemy-controlled area of the city at night. 

  As the smoke in his driver's tunnel cleared, he was just able to make out the shape of another rocket-propelled grenade in flight heading directly towards him 


He assessed that his best course of action to save the lives of his crew was to push through, out of the ambush. 

He drove his Warrior directly through the barricade, not knowing if there were mines or improvised explosive devices placed there to destroy his vehicle. 

By doing this he was able to lead the remaining five Warriors behind him towards safety. 

As the smoke in his driver's tunnel cleared, he was just able to make out the shape of another rocket-propelled grenade in flight heading directly towards him. 

He pulled the heavy armoured hatch down with one hand, whilst still controlling his vehicle with the other. 

Head exposed 

However, the overpressure from the explosion of the rocket wrenched the hatch out of his grip, and the flames and force of the blast passed directly over him, down the driver's tunnel, further wounding the semi-conscious gunner in the turret. 

The impact of this rocket destroyed Beharry's armoured periscope, so he was forced to drive the vehicle through the remainder of the ambushed route, some 1,500 metres long, with his hatch opened up and his head exposed to enemy fire, all the time with no communications with any other vehicle. 

During this long surge through the ambushes the vehicle was again struck by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. 

While his head remained out of the hatch, to enable him to see the route ahead, he was directly exposed to much of this fire, and was himself hit by a 7.62mm bullet, which penetrated his helmet and remained lodged on its inner surface. 

Despite this harrowing weight of incoming fire Beharry continued to push through the extended ambush, still leading his platoon until he broke clean. 

  Exposing himself yet again to enemy fire he returned to the rear of the burning vehicle to lead the disorientated and shocked dismounts and casualties to safety 


He then visually identified another Warrior from his company and followed it through the streets of Al Amarah to the outside of the Cimic House outpost, which was receiving small arms fire from the surrounding area. 

Once he had brought his vehicle to a halt outside, without thought for his own personal safety, he climbed onto the turret of the still-burning vehicle and, seemingly oblivious to the incoming enemy small arms fire, manhandled his wounded platoon commander out of the turret, off the vehicle and to the safety of a nearby Warrior. 

Led to safety 

He then returned once again to his vehicle and again mounted the exposed turret to lift out the vehicle's gunner and move him to a position of safety. 

Exposing himself yet again to enemy fire he returned to the rear of the burning vehicle to lead the disorientated and shocked dismounts and casualties to safety. 

Remounting his burning vehicle for the third time, he drove it through a complex chicane and into the security of the defended perimeter of the outpost, thus denying it to the enemy. 

  Once inside Beharry collapsed from the sheer physical and mental exhaustion of his efforts and was subsequently himself evacuated 


Only at this stage did Beharry pull the fire extinguisher handles, immobilising the engine of the vehicle, dismounted and then moved himself into the relative safety of the back of another Warrior. 

Once inside Beharry collapsed from the sheer physical and mental exhaustion of his efforts and was subsequently himself evacuated. 

Having returned to duty following medical treatment, on 11 June 2004 Beharry's Warrior was part of a quick reaction force tasked to attempt to cut off a mortar team that had attacked a Coalition Force base in Al Amarah. 

As the lead vehicle of the platoon he was moving rapidly through the dark city streets towards the suspected firing point, when his vehicle was ambushed by the enemy from a series of rooftop positions. 

During this initial heavy weight of enemy fire, a rocket-propelled grenade detonated on the vehicle's frontal armour, just six inches from Beharry's head, resulting in a serious head injury. 

  Beharry then lost consciousness as a result of his wounds 


Other rockets struck the turret and sides of the vehicle, incapacitating his commander and injuring several of the crew. 

With the blood from his head injury obscuring his vision, Beharry managed to continue to control his vehicle, and forcefully reversed the Warrior out of the ambush area. 

The vehicle continued to move until it struck the wall of a nearby building and came to rest. 

Beharry then lost consciousness as a result of his wounds. 

By moving the vehicle out of the enemy's chosen killing area he enabled other Warrior crews to be able to extract his crew from his vehicle, with a greatly reduced risk from incoming fire. 

Despite receiving a serious head injury, which later saw him being listed as very seriously injured and in a coma for some time, his level-headed actions in the face of heavy and accurate enemy fire at short range again almost certainly saved the lives of his crew and provided the conditions for their safe evacuation to medical treatment. 

Beharry displayed repeated extreme gallantry and unquestioned valour, despite intense direct attacks, personal injury and damage to his vehicle in the face of relentless enemy action.


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## tomahawk6 (24 Oct 2005)

Big thread here at the time he was awarded the VC.


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## big bad john (24 Oct 2005)

I missed it...it is still big news in the UK.  He is fighting to return to Regimental Duties.  At present he is still in the clutches of the public/media relations darlings.


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## DFW2T (24 Oct 2005)

BRAVO F'N ZULU..... *Pte Johnson Beharry VC!*   
 I was in Buzargon/Al Ahmarah when this happened and we didn't know if this was an urban legend or not.  I hope his (and his comrades) recoveries are complete, your families are well  and he should know that there were a few Canucks who were glued to the SAT phones and the NET in hopes of a good end result of this ambush.
  I can tell you that the CIMIC HOUSE in Al Ahmarah was and (is recently) a "NO GO ZONE".  As not to take away from Pte Beharrys' heroic actions,  I can be PM'd to give more details on that little hot pocket of insurgency


Salute!

DFW2T


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## tomahawk6 (25 Oct 2005)

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/28180.0.html

Here is the thread for your viewing pleasure.


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## Michael Dorosh (25 Oct 2005)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Big thread here at the time he was awarded the VC.



_Seven months ago...._

An update on his condition would be of interest but a recounting of his VC actions is just old news by this point.  I'll say again here what I said then - what do you do for the rest of your career in the Army after you've won the VC?

Actually, this leads to an even more interesting question...off to start a new thread.


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## Infanteer (25 Oct 2005)

Michael Dorosh said:
			
		

> I'll say again here what I said then - what do you do for the rest of your career in the Army after you've won the VC?



Get a bar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hazlitt_Upham


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## geo (25 Oct 2005)

Let's put it this way, you don't plan on becoming a hero.... it just happens.
All of a sudden; all of that intensive training, battle drills, etc are all tingling at your fingertips and things go click, click click... pure light, clear as day... you know what you have to do and nothing else matters.

My hat is off to the man

Chimo!


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## Michael Dorosh (25 Oct 2005)

geo said:
			
		

> Let's put it this way, you don't plan on becoming a hero.... it just happens.
> All of a sudden; all of that intensive training, battle drills, etc are all tingling at your fingertips and things go click, click click... pure light, clear as day... you know what you have to do and nothing else matters.
> 
> My hat is off to the man
> ...



Some people might say getting the VC was the easy part - there are a long list of guys who got the VC and couldn't handle it the rest of their lives.  My hat is certainly off to him - and let's hope he doesn't turn out like Filip Konowal or Richardson of the Strathcona's Horse.  If he does half as well as Smokey Smith did, I reckon he'll be alright.

Posted another question for consideration here:

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/35786.new.html#new


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## big bad john (24 Sep 2006)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/23/nbeharry23.xml&site=5&page=0

Beharry, VC, pays terrible price for valour 
By Elizabeth Grice


(Filed: 23/09/2006)



Audio: My life as a reluctant role model 
Fame and honour have come at a terrible price for Pte Johnson Beharry, the young soldier from Grenada who was awarded the Victoria Cross — Britain's highest award for valour — by the Queen last year.

   
Pte Beharry still suffers blinding pain in his head from his injuries 
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, he reveals for the first time that he is in constant pain from the war injuries he received in Iraq when rescuing fellow soldiers from his burning armoured personnel carrier.

He also says that his days of active service are at an end and that his personal life has been overshadowed by family feuding.

Pte Beharry, 27, of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, twice cheated death in acts of exceptional bravery when his Warrior tank was hit by rocket-propelled grenades in two ambushes in 2004.

Exposed to enemy fire, with his hatch blown away, his communications gone and his periscope shattered, he led his five-vehicle convoy to safety then clambered on to the red-hot metal to save colleagues, including his commanding officer.

When he went to Buckingham Palace, with his wife, Lynthia, to collect the VC, the Queen told him that the injuries inside would take the longest to heal, he reveals.

The Queen's words were prophetic: although his marriage was already on the rocks, Pte Beharry said, he had yet to discover both the down side of fame and the full extent of his physical and mental injuries. Some members of his extended family, both in Britain and the Caribbean, had plagued him with requests for help, he said.

Until now, he has not responded to their accusations in newspaper reports that he has become aloof and too grand for them.

   
Pte Beharry with his girlfriend Tamara Vincent


"Everyone thinks that because I receive the Victoria Cross, I receive a wall of money," he said yesterday.

"They expect me to give them whatever they ask for. But the Victoria Cross is just a medal.

"They treat me like I owe them something. All they can think about is themselves and what they can get."

Several members of the family have circulated stories that Pte Beharry, puffed up by his honour, deserted his home-loving wife for a striking Grenadian, Tamara Vincent.

Pte Beharry says the reality is that the marriage was already over: his wife did not write to him when he was serving overseas and did not spend much time by his bedside when he was recovering from brain surgery.

Miss Vincent, 24, said: "He is a wonderful person, loving and caring.

"A lot of people try to grab him. He can't take the pressure and the stress."

Pte Beharry's skull was shattered by the blasts and he still suffers blinding pain in his head, his back and his shoulder.

"I take painkillers but they don't touch the pain," he said.

His brain injuries have altered his easy-going personality and left him short-tempered and quick to take offence. So he stays at home rather than risk "getting into trouble" in clubs or bars.

Two years on, he is still having treatment. He said that doctors could not tell him when — or if — he would get better. Pte Beharry is now in an unusual position: superiors salute him but he has no job; he is on the Army payroll but without a role.

Flashbacks from the war wake him at night and he cannot get back to sleep.

He cannot read more than one or two pages without getting angry. The pressure to live up to an ideal is difficult, he said. "Everyone forgets the old person. They see this great person and they expect me to be that person. It's hard to live to please everyone."

Pte Beharry was one of eight children brought up in a two-room hut in Grenada. He moved to Britain when he was 19 and worked on building sites. By joining the Army, he reversed a slide into drink and soft drugs and subsequently discovered an aptitude for driving the 25-ton Warrior vehicles.

In his remarkable book, Barefoot Soldier, to be serialised from tomorrow in The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph, he says that he now wants to show how disadvantaged young people can turn their lives around.

Asked whether there was ever a moment when he wished he were an unknown soldier again without his VC, Pte Beharry replied: "I am proud of it, but you don't get something like this for free. You get it and survive with the pain — or you get it and die."


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## Kirkhill (24 Sep 2006)

Further to Pvt Beharry's tale and from his forthcoming book.

Reprinted from the Sunday Telegraph under the fair dealings provision of the Copy Right act.




> 'I can see no end to the killing zone, and for the first time I feel real fear'
> 
> 
> (Filed: 24/09/2006)
> ...



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/24/nbeharry24.xml&site=5&page=0


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## Cloud Cover (24 Sep 2006)

My good God, that story is unreal.


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## big bad john (24 Sep 2006)

The helmet Private Beharry was wearing when an RPG exploded just six inches from his face


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## 17thRecceSgt (24 Sep 2006)

I would have loved to have had a story like this for all the young troopers to read when I used to do Armd QL3 courses.  I read it twice.  Amazing.

Alittle disturbing to read that his family started to go alittle off the deep end.  One would think they would support him, not the other way around.  People are weird sometimes.  Weird=need a kick in the guts in this case.



Mods - Is it possible at all to remove the posts of Micheal Dorosh from this thread now??  They...take away from the thread IMHO.


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## big bad john (26 Sep 2006)

FINALLY!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5381106.stm

VC hero Beharry awarded promotion  

Pte Beharry was seriously injured while serving in Iraq 
The first living soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) in nearly four decades has been given a promotion, the Ministry of Defence has said. 
Johnson Beharry, from Grenada in the West Indies, was promoted from private to lance corporal for "distinguished and exceptional service". 

The 27-year-old was given the VC last year, for his actions in Iraq. 

He twice led comrades to safety during attacks in the town of al-Amarah in May 2004, suffering serious injuries. 

On 1 May 2004, he guided a five-vehicle convoy through a mile of enemy ground to drop off wounded comrades. 

Weeks later, his vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Despite suffering a serious head wound, he managed to reverse his Warrior to safety. 

Family feud 

But he has recently revealed how the fame accompanying his VC award - the first to a living soldier since 1969 - came at a high price. 

In his book Barefoot Soldier, due to be published soon, he has revealed that his days of active service are over because of a brain injury he suffered in the second attack. 

And amid family feuding, he and his wife announced their separation last year. 

L/Cpl Beharry's promotion means his daily pay has risen from £54.60 a day to £58.79. 

As the holder of the Victoria Cross he also receives an annual award of £1,495.


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## Kirkhill (26 Sep 2006)

The things you don't have to do to get a promotion.


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## big bad john (26 Sep 2006)

He was due for his promotion before he got his VC.  His actual promotion is long overdue.


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## geo (26 Sep 2006)

Mud Recce Man said:
			
		

> I would have loved to have had a story like this for all the young troopers to read when I used to do Armd QL3 courses.  I read it twice.  Amazing.
> Alittle disturbing to read that his family started to go alittle off the deep end.  One would think they would support him, not the other way around.  People are weird sometimes.  Weird=need a kick in the guts in this case.


MRM,
For someone from the West Indies to have met HRH QEII and now beneficiary of an annual gratuity for life, many from his old home town probably think he's a millionaire... and with respect to the Woman that was his wife... she had pretty much  left him prior to deployment so..... the H@ll with her IMHO

WRT the promotion - good for him, It's about time - though I imagine his injuries might have been the root cause of the delay (prolly declassified in his Med category)


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## 17thRecceSgt (26 Sep 2006)

roger


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## The Bread Guy (27 Sep 2006)

Kinda puts the conditions back home in perspective when you're considered uber-well off getting an extra $200-300/month (if you believe Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Cross#Annuity ), don't it?


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