As Prince Harry divulged in his memoir, he was responsible for ending the lives of 25 insurgents.

Under the deafening noise of rotor blades and jet engines, co-pilot ‘Captain Henry Wales’ scanned the dusty landscape of Helmand province for Taliban, or in his words, ‘baddies to eliminate’.

Sitting in the cramped front seat of a £45m Apache, the officer known to the world as Prince Harry, was responsible for firing the helicopter’s 30mm cannon and Hellfire missiles.

A responsibility that would weigh on anyone’s conscience since the shots from the cannon could disembowel any human being in its path. The missiles, guided by Harry’s on-board computer, could destroy any armored vehicle or small building.

The barrel of Harry’s cannon, positioned directly under the cockpit, slid to the left, then to the right. He identified the enemies and opened fire, sending the 23-inch barrel of the chain gun into a furious spin.

Harry told readers that the 25 deaths “was not a fact that filled me with satisfaction, but I wasn’t ashamed either.”

This moment of impact was captured in grainy images recorded by a video camera on the landing gear of the AH-64. On his return to Camp Bastion, the UK headquarters in southern Afghanistan, the number of enemy gunmen killed by Harry was tallied.

As the 38-year-old Harry decided to divulge in his memoirs, he was apparently responsible for taking the lives of 25 insurgents. They are said to have been killed in six engagements during their 2012-2013 tour of duty.

Based on how he has described this period, taking his life left him emotionally numb. As he tells readers, his deaths “were not a fact that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed either.”

He attributes this detachment to the military training he underwent before taking to the skies over Helmand Province in such a deadly killing machine.

He tells readers that his instructors trained me for ‘another’ them. Consequently, he considered his victims ‘chess pieces’ to be removed from the board, rather than people. Why? Because in Harry’s words ‘you can’t kill people if you see them as people’.

As Harry, 38, has chosen to divulge in his memoirs, Spare, was apparently responsible for killing 25 insurgents.

Such is the nature of combat, most UK troops rarely engaged the Taliban, because their roles did not require them to do so. Of those who did, few can say for sure that someone was shot.

Harry suggests that the airmen can count their deaths, thanks to modern technology. Writing in Spare, he assures readers that “the age of Apaches and laptops” allows him to share his kills “accurately.”

Last night the Defense Ministry said it would not comment on such ‘operational details’ for ‘security reasons’. Apparently, Harry doesn’t feel bound by the same restrictions. It remains to be seen what his colleagues, particularly his official brothers, make of his admission.

While at the end of his stint as an Apache gunner Harry admitted that he had engaged the enemy, this is the first time he has been so specific about his activities. He had never before discussed the number of Taliban he represented. Such a disclosure may raise concerns about his personal safety.

He has long been considered a terrorist threat, not only by people of his royal status, but also because of his service in Afghanistan, as a junior officer in a reconnaissance unit in 2007 and in 2012-13 as an Apache pilot.

The irony is that he was never supposed to return to the war zone after his first tour, which was cut short after an Australian magazine broke a media embargo against reporting his presence in Afghanistan.

According to senior military sources, Harry was enraged when the higher-ups ordered him to return to Britain. He also demanded that he should be able to redeploy to Helmand province.

But military commanders thought the war against the Taliban was simply too dangerous for Harry, who was third in line to the throne at the time, to return.

One source said: ‘He couldn’t go back with ground forces, the air was the only option. Honestly no one thought I would qualify as an Apache pilot or co-pilot, the course is very difficult and I did not have the science qualifications of most trainee pilots.

“So we threw that option at him saying he could come back as an Apache aircrew, thinking it would never happen. But he not only passed all the courses, but he was the first in his class. The rest is history.’