'I was walking down the High Street on the phone crying': James Heappey explains his most harrowing call

17 April 2024, 09:30 | Updated: 17 April 2024, 09:46

Ex-Armed Forces Minister James Heappey reveals his most harrowing call

By EJ Ward

Ex-Armed Forces Minister James Heappey has opened up on the call that left him walking down the High Street in tears over the evacuation of Afghanistan.

LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast asked: "Four years as Armed Forces Minister, what was the most distressing call you took?"

"There were many, but I think that the ones that just brought with them the most raw emotion were during the Kabul airlift," Mr Heappey revealed.

The evacuation - also known as Operation Pitting - saw over 15,000 Afghans and British nationals flown out of the country in August 2021, following the Taliban's takeover.

He explained he was making real-time, and life-changing decisions about "getting people on a plane."

Telling LBC about his "stand out moments," the former Army officer recalled a morning media round when he spoke to Nick, and he told people there was a "suicide bomber on the loose in Kabul and we think they're going to attack."

"And I get the call a few hours later to say they had come and dozens of people had died," which Mr Heappey said would "haunt him."

The Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force were all a part of the mass effort over the summer, with approximately 600 soldiers being deployed to Kabul airport to provide food, water, and medical assistance to evacuees.

Then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace described it as "the largest British evacuation since the Second World War", with one flight setting a record for the highest number of people carried in an RAF C-17 aircraft at 439.

Mr Heappey went on to tell Nick on the final day of evacuation operations from Afghanistan his most difficult moment took place while he was on holiday.

"And then the final Saturday of the airlift. I was on holiday on a weekend break down in the Isle of Wight and Number 10 phoned me because Stonewall was desperately trying to bring out some Afghan LGBT people, and the timings just didn't look like they were going to work."

He said the last flight out of the besieged county was "imminent, Pen Farthing's dogs and cats had finally gone and our last flight was imminent," and he had to make a harrowing call.

Recalling speaking to a senior manager at the charity, he said he was reduced to tears.

"I just remember walking down the middle of the High Street and Cowes crying on the phone," because "it was pretty obvious that we weren't going to get those people out and that charity had busted a gut to get them to the airfield, but it just wasn't going to be in time. And that last plane had to go."