British Prince Harry reports for duty in Australia next week

CANBERRA — Prince Harry arrives in Australia’s national capital next week to begin four weeks of training with the Australian army before the British royal ends his decade-long military career.

The fourth in line to the British throne will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Canberra on Monday (April 6) in his first public function on arriving in Australia, the Defence Department said in a statement today.

The 30-year-old veteran of two tours of Afghanistan will then explore the World War I and Afghanistan galleries at the Australian War Memorial before reporting for duty to Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, who is Australia’s Defence Force Chief.

Captain Harry Wales, as he is known in the British Army, will be embedded with a number of Australian army units and regiments in the cities of Sydney, Darwin and Perth.

He will also attend centenary commemorations of the World War I Gallipoli campaign in Turkey on April 25.

In a statement released in March confirming he would quit the British military in June, Prince Harry said that leaving the army had been “a really tough decision” but he was excited about the future.

Prince Harry, an Apache helicopter pilot, will be attached to an aviation squadron in the east coast city of Sydney and work with the elite Special Air Service Regiment in the west coast city of Perth, a defence official said on condition of anonymity, citing departmental policy.

In the northern city of Darwin, which will become a training hub for 1,050 US Marines in the coming weeks, Prince Harry will work with a predominantly Aboriginal infantry regiment, the North-West Mobile Force, better known as NORFORCE, the official said.

About 5,000 British and Australian troops have taken part since an exchange program between the two armies began in 1976. AP