David James Hayden, MC (born 1979) is the first Royal Air Force

non-commissioned officer A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...

to win the Military Cross.

Early life

Hayden was born in Germany and attended the

Gleed Boys' School Gleed Boys' School was a secondary school for boys aged 11 to 16, in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. The school has been merged with Gleed Girls' Technology College to form Sir John Gleed School, a co-educational secondary school with separ ...

in Spalding, where he grew up. His father (who died in June 2005, aged 49) was a tank driver in the Queen's Royal Hussars, becoming a warrant officer class 2.

RAF service

Hayden joined the

RAF Regiment The Royal Air Force Regiment (RAF Regiment) is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist corps. Founded by royal warrant in 1942, the Corps carries out soldiering tasks relating to the delivery of air power. Examples of such ta ...

in 1997 and after a number of tours including time with No. 2 RAF Force Protection Wing at RAF Leeming – with which he served in Afghanistan for the first time – he is currently a sergeant. He is a qualified instructor. While serving in Iraq in 2007, as part of No. 4 RAF Force Protection Wing (of which 1 Squadron is a sub-unit), he showed outstanding courage while commanding a dismounted patrol in a fight against an insurgent force, repeatedly risking his own life to rescue a wounded comrade and extract his team.Ministry of Defence website
His Military Cross was gazetted on 7 March 2008.

Footnotes

Royal Air Force airmen Recipients of the Military Cross People from Spalding, Lincolnshire Royal Air Force personnel of the Iraq War Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{RAF-bio-stub