Prince Harry called in an “air strike” on his father King Charles III’s car as he trained for combat with the British military near his grandmother’s country estate, his new book has claimed.
The revelation features in his memoir Spare, in which Harry writes about his preparations to become a forward air controller in Afghanistan.
Once he learnt how to do the job, he had to master 28 instructions for aircraft pilots, called combat controls.
He carried out the training near Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth II's estate in the eastern county of Norfolk, where he pretended to blow up targets.
“It felt sacrilege to be standing on a cliff above this place and trying to obliterate it,” he writes.
“Of course it was pretend obliteration. I didn’t actually blow up one single dale. Still, at the end of each day I felt I had.”
His father, who was living nearby, spotted a Typhoon aircraft flying low overhead one day and figured it was Harry, so “got into his Audi and hurried over”, he writes.
“He said he could see how good I was getting at this new job. Above all, he could see how hard I was working at it, and that delighted him.
“I felt buoyed by his praise but I had to get back to work. I was mid-control, couldn’t tell the Typhoon to please hold on a moment.”
Prince Harry says his father told him to get “back to work”.
“He drove off. As he went down the track I told the Typhoon: new target. Grey Audi. Headed south-east from my position down track. Towards a big silver barn orientated east-west," he writes.
“The Typhoon tracked Pa, did a low pass straight over him, almost shattering the windows of his Audi.
“But ultimately spared him. On my orders.
“It went on to blow a silver barn to smithereens.”
The British military subjected Prince Harry to Muslim taunts to prepare him for possible capture in Afghanistan, his new book claims.
In his memoir Spare, Harry writes about an army exercise in Cornwall, one of “the last hurdles for flight crews and pilots before deployment” in Afghanistan.
The exercise involved teaching survival techniques, such as how to catch and kill a chicken, and simulated a helicopter crash-landing behind enemy lines.
As they reached what they thought was the end, Prince Harry and his comrades were ambushed by a group of men in “camo jackets and black balaclavas”.
They wrapped blacked-out ski goggles over their eyes and zip-tied their hands before interrogating them.
Role-playing captors were used in the exercise with a woman in a scarf, seeking to exploit the duke's mother’s friendship with Dodi Fayed in the weeks before her death in a Paris car accident in 1997.
“She was wearing a shemagh over her face,” he writes. “She went on and on about something I didn’t understand. I couldn’t keep up.
“Then I realised. Mummy. She was talking about my mother. Your mother was pregnant when she died, eh? With your sibling? A Muslim baby!”
He said nothing, but “screamed with his eyes”, before she stormed out and one of the captors spat in his face. Senior officers later defended the exercise, saying “we felt you needed to be tested”, Prince Harry claims.
“I didn’t answer,” he says. “But that took it a bit too far,” he writes.
Prince Harry's book is released - in pictures
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The first copies of Prince Harry's new book Spare are unpacked during a midnight sale at a book shop in London. EPA -
After months of anticipation and a sustained publicity blitz, Prince Harry's book is on sale in the UK. AFP -
Photographers surround a trolley containing copies of Spare. PA -
Caroline Lennon, the first customer to purchase a copy of Spare, poses for photographers at Waterstones in Piccadilly, London. PA -
There is no mention of royal family members in the foreword to Spare. AP -
The book reveals that Prince Harry took cocaine and magic mushrooms. Reuters -
Spare also lifts the lid on the prince's relationships with the royal family. EPA -
The book contains allegations of racism within the royal family and accounts of a fight with Prince William. AFP
