In Remembrance: Private Craig Barber — 2 Royal Welsh, Basra, 6 August 2007
Private Craig Barber, 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, was killed in Basra on 6 August 2007. He was 20 and from Ogmore Vale.
Soldier, Team Medic and Warrior driver
Craig joined 2 Royal Welsh in 2004 and had already served one tour in Iraq before TELIC 10. Earlier in 2007 he qualified as a Team Medic, adding a role centred on helping the soldiers around him. He had also recently qualified as a Warrior driver in 9 Platoon, C Company.
The official tributes make clear how much pride he took in the vehicle and the responsibility that came with keeping it ready. He understood that maintenance and reliability were not abstract technical issues: if the Warrior worked, it protected the people depending on it.
6 August 2007
On the night of 6 August, C Company was attached to the Basra City Battle Group for an operation intended to disrupt insurgents carrying out rocket and mortar attacks against Basra Palace.
Craig was driving his Warrior in the Al Fursi district when the force came under small-arms fire at about 23:20 local time. He was killed during the attack.
I want that detail kept straight because incidents from the summer of 2007 are easily blurred together afterwards. Craig was killed by small-arms fire while driving the Warrior, not by an IED. The MOD record is clear on it.
Remembering Craig
Craig’s comrades remembered a physically imposing but warm and good-humoured young man: a dependable soldier, a devoted family man and one of the characters of his platoon. His officers also emphasised the professional pride he took in being a Warrior driver and his determination not to let the people around him down.
I was serving in Basra on TELIC 10, and the sort of operation Craig was on belongs to the same relentless campaign I remember. I have not supplied a personal memory of Craig, so I am not going to invent one. His own record and the words of the people who knew him are enough.
Return to Log 047 — Operation TELIC campaign guide →
Official remembrance record
Ministry of Defence — Private Craig Barber, 6 August 2007 →
Image note: The official MOD remembrance page contains Craig’s portrait, but the photograph is marked “All rights reserved”, so I have not reproduced it here without permission.
