Tribute to signaller killed days before quitting Army

BRITISH soldiers in Afghanistan display bravery “we cannot begin to estimate”, a coroner said as he ruled a Yorkshire serviceman was unlawfully killed by a suicide bomber.

Signaller Wayne Bland, 21, of 16 Signal Regiment, suffered fatal injuries in an explosion when a car driver pulled up behind the armoured carrier he was travelling on and detonated a bomb.

The blast happened on August 11, 2008 –only 11 days before Signaller Bland, from Leeds, was due to return home to consider leaving the armed forces.

West Yorkshire coroner David Hinchcliff said: “It is a sad reflection that very rarely does a day go by when we do not hear news reports about some young man who has died in not dissimilar circumstances.

“We can only be grateful that we have young men like Wayne. We cannot begin to estimate their bravery – at any one time some fanatic might cause them harm.

“It is a terrible state of affairs and a sad reflection of the world in which we live.”

The two-day inquest heard how Signaller Bland, who was deployed to Afghanistan in February 2008, was killed when his regiment were in the process of handing over duties to 22 Signal Regiment in Helmand Province.

Fellow soldiers said he was stood on the outside on the third of three Saxon armoured vehicles travelling in convoy when the explosion happened.

Mr Hinchcliff said: “The suicide bomber was intent on intercepting the patrol and self-detonating the explosives. The sole intention of that man must have been to cause as much damage as possible and to kill or maim the soldiers.”

The inquest heard how colleagues unfastened Signaller Bland’s body armour to make him comfortable as he was driven to a Czech field hospital, before he was taken to a US air base where, following consultation with British forces, his life support machine was switched off.

His mother Maureen Bland, who had told the hearing she doubted the Army’s explanation of his injuries, said she was satisfied with the verdict but added that it should have been the family, and not the military, who decided to switch off his life support.

“Asleep or alive, all soldiers are heroes,” she said. “Every single one of them.”