HIS disability would be daunting to most people.

But having a leg amputated has not stopped a heroic Hampshire squaddie from fighting on the frontline.

Corporal Barry Whale battled against the Taliban in war-torn Afghanistan this summer, becoming the first one-legged British soldier to see action in more than a century.

As a medic in the Regimental Aid Post deployed in June, he was one of just 24 who faced about 400 insurgents in an epic three-week battle dubbed the Siege of Roshan Tower.

The fight, considered one of the most fierce in the seven-year war, saw 100 Taliban killed as his battalion came under attack day and night for nine days.

The troops from the 2nd Battalion, the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, nicknamed The Tigers, were battered with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and Kalashnikov assault rifles as they bravely defended their compound, a vital outpost in the Helmand Province.

It was four years after Cpl Whale, from Eastleigh, had his right leg amputated below the knee.

Speaking at Sennelager training centre in northern Germany, where he today celebrates his 29th birthday, he told how his prosthetic limb only came off once as he dived into a bunker to escape a mortar.

Thankfully, a fellow soldier threw it after him.

“ E v e r y o n e thought it was hilarious, but I was gutted,” he said.

“I’m really proud to have been part of it. You can still serve with only one leg. I don’t look at myself as disabled — just slightly less abled now and then.”

In 2000, the former Wyvern Technology School student fell 30ft during a training exercise in Bosnia when aged just 21.

He shattered his ankle and spent three-and-half-years in and out of hospital undergoing nine operations on his foot.

The surgery failed and after four frustrating years he asked surgeons to remove his limb. A keen sportsman, he threw himself into an array of activities to regain full military fitness.

“I’m a very active person. I still go climbing, mountain-biking, kayaking and diving,” he said.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “There is no shortage of brave and committed people in our armed forces, but the career of Cpl Barry Whale is particularly striking.

“He has overcome his injury with the same determination and bravery that he has shown serving on operations and his story serves as an inspiration to us all.”

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