'I think this is as normal as I'm ever going to get'

The quotes in this article came from a pooled interview carried out by a reporter from the Press Association who was given access to Harry during his deployment

Widow Six Seven had just given them the signal over the radio: "Cleared hot." Seconds later, a roaring could be heard as the US F15 fighter jets dropped two 500lb bombs on their targets. As one dropped a third bomb on a Taliban bunker, men could be seen on the ground scrambling out from their cover.

To the American pilots, the English public school voice responding to their "in hot" request and guiding their missile fire gave no clue that the army officer with whom they were communicating was a member of the British royal family.

The soldier they knew as call sign Widow Six Seven was Prince Harry, working in Afghanistan as a forward air controller [FAC] identifying Taliban forces on the ground, verifying coordinates and clearing them as targets for attack.

The prince's main location was forward operating base (FOB) Delhi, an austere outpost in the perilous Garmsir area close to the border with Pakistan. It is a helicopter ride away from a military hospital, food comes from 24-hour ration packs, known to soldiers as ratpacks or compo and far from fresh, and the water is almost exclusively for drinking and cooking.

Toilets here are plywood-constructed thunderboxes or urinal pipes stuck in the ground known as "desert roses". It was here that the third in line to the throne said he had the chance to be "normal".

"It's bizarre," he said. "I'm out here now, haven't really had a shower for four days, haven't washed my clothes for a week and everything seems completely normal ... I think this is about as normal as I'm ever going to get."

Until last night, the media had agreed to a blackout on reporting that the 23-year-old Household Cavalry officer has been in Afghanistan since just before Christmas.

The prince had retrained as an FAC after being refused permission to fight in Iraq alongside the men he had led in his regiment as troop leader. He admits now he was regarded as a "bullet magnet". As a compromise, he was allowed, under strict conditions of secrecy, to work from a fortified position a distance away from the frontline in Helmand province, calling in aircraft and observing enemy movements.

On screens known to the troops as Kill TV or Taliban TV, the prince watched live pictures of the action on the battlefield. Cornet Wales, the rank by which he is known in the army, would observe all movements within his own restricted operating zone [ROZ] and give jets permission to enter his air space when he felt it was safe to do so. The prince's job was to study the pictures, looking for body heat or movement that would help pinpoint the enemy.

"Terry Taliban and his mates, as soon as they hear air they go to ground which makes life a little bit tricky," he said, sitting in the operations room at FOB Delhi "So having something that gives you a visual feedback from way up means that they can carry on with their normal pattern of life and we can follow them."

As part of his battlegroup's fire planning cell, one of Harry's most important responsibilities is to prevent accidents such as planes being hit by mortars and artillery shells or becoming involved in friendly fire incidents.

"My job is to get air up, whether I have been tasked it a day before or on the day or when troops are in a contact [with the enemy]. Air is tasked to me, they check in to me when they come into the ROZ and then I'm basically responsible for that aircraft," he said.

Before any strike on a target, it is up to the FAC to set the coordinates and give final clearance to drop a bomb. Because of the constant demands for air support across southern Afghanistan, a key part of the prince's job was also to "bid" for aircraft which could be British, US, French or from another allied country.

When the prince arrived last December, the temperature at night would fall dramatically. With no heating in the sleeping accommodation his "dossbag" [sleeping bag] would have been one of his few comforts. Sitting on his cot in FOB Delhi, Harry said there was nothing much he was missing. "I honestly don't know what I miss at all: music, we've got music, we've got light, we've got food, we've got [non-alcoholic] drink."

Aware of his reputation as a party boy, he added: "No, I don't miss booze, if that's the next question." He went on: "It's nice just to be here with all the guys and just mucking in as one of the lads."

The prince flew first to FOB Dwyer, six miles from the frontline, and later was posted to FOB Delhi, in the buildings of a bombed-out agricultural college. The more basic of the two bases, there is no running water; a bag hung up in an outdoor wooden cubicle makes do for the occasional shower. Some hot water is available from a Puffing Billy - a mini boiler which heats a metal barrel into which the troops can sparingly dip a mortar case as a makeshift bucket. The rounded ends of missile cases are used as shaving bowls.

Here Harry shared a room with a constantly changing contingent of Royal Artillery soldiers. "This is what it is all about," Harry said. "What it's all about is being here with the guys rather than being in a room with a bunch of officers ... most of them are artillery guys basically doing a swap over with the other ones on JTAC Hill, stagging on, stagging off, doing a week because it's quite a lot of graft up there.

"It's good fun to be with just a normal bunch of guys, listening to their problems, listening to what they think. And especially getting through every day, its not painful to be here, but you are doing a job and to be with such fantastic people, the Gurkhas and the guys I'm sharing a room with, makes it all worthwhile."

The prince's immediate boss, Major Mark Milford, Officer Commanding B Company of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, said the area was "as dangerous as it can get."