Harry keen to be an uncle and fight alongside brother

Captain Wales was in Afghanistan when the news broke that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were expecting their first child and he called home to congratulate his brother and sister-in-law. 

Harry will be replaced as the third in line to the throne when the royal baby is born in July this year. 

“Obviously I’m thrilled for both of them,” he said in Helmand Province about 10 days after St James’s Palace announced that Kate was pregnant. 

“It’s about time,” he joked. “I can’t wait to be an uncle.”

The Duke of Cambridge also serves in the Armed Forces as an RAF Flight lieutenant and works as a Search and Rescue Force pilot on Sea King helicopters but the second in line to the throne has never seen frontline service because it is considered too dangerous.

His younger brother said: “I think there is a bit of jealousy, not just the fact that I get to fly this, but obviously he’d love to be out here. And to be honest with you, I don’t see why he couldn’t.

“His job out here would be flying the IRT (Immediate Response Team), or whatever, doing Chinook missions. Just the same as us. No one knows who’s in the cockpit.

“Yes, you get shot at. But if the guys who are doing the same job as us are being shot at on the ground, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us being shot at as well.”

His tour gave Prince Harry time to reflect on the incident in Las Vegas which led to pictures of him partying naked being published around the world just weeks before his deployment.

“At the end of the day I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down,” he said. “But at the end of the day I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.”

The 28-year-old revealed he gets regular nudges from his father reminding him to act more like a prince and described how his life is divided into three parts.

“One in the Army, one socially in my own private time, and then one with the family and stuff like that.

“So there is a switch and I flick it when necessary. 

“And I’d like to think that it’s measured and balanced as the way it is. Army comes first, it’s my work at the end of the day.”