Super surgeon

Mr Calder - a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon at both Basingstoke hospital and The Hampshire Clinic - was called up for service with the Desert Rats in March, three days after he arrived in the Basingstoke area with his young family.

The 35-year-old senior medical officer in the army reserve went into Iraq with the first wave of British troops, and then as the fighting continued around Basra he found fatherhood had changed how he felt about treating wounded children.

He told The Gazette: "The upsetting thing was seeing children with needless wounds. They might pick up a shiny metal object which would explode and then suffer terrible wounds and burns.

"We had a lot of children through and had to evacuate them to Kuwait. I have already had plenty of experience of treating wounded children in Kosovo, but it is perhaps more difficult when you have children of your own."

Mr Calder is one of only two orthopaedic surgeons in the forces to be parachutists and his 12 years in the Territorial Army and the reserve have included postings to theatres where the bullets were flying - such as Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Among the children he had to treat in Iraq was an eight-year-old who was shot by an Iraqi. Mr Calder said he had to inform the boy's father his son was dead, while a few yards away the official from Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, who was responsible for the fire-fight, was being treated for a head wound.

He said: "An Iraqi was shooting at an Iraqi and the eight-year-old happened to be in the wrong place. We could not control the bleeding, which was why he died.

"That was probably the most difficult time - explaining to his father that he had died and knowing the Ba'ath party official was being treated 20 yards away.

"The father said: 'I have waited 30 years to be free and, on the day the British arrive, my own people shoot my son.' The party official recovered well enough from his head wound to stand trial."

Advancing into Iraq on the first night of the campaign had been an "exhilarating experience", the surgeon admitted, despite the fear of chemical attack and missiles.

Mr Calder said: "It was in the middle of the night, there was an incredible amount of dust and all around us, fires from burned-out tanks and oil wells. Off to the sides there were still fire-fights going on.

"We had casualties on both sides coming through with shrapnel and gunshot wounds and injuries from accidents. Some were seriously hurt."

After a pause, his unit moved up to an airfield on the outskirts of Basra, the main city in southern Iraq and home to a large Shia Muslim population oppressed by the tyrant Saddam Hussein.

Mr Calder's dressing station was staffed by 100 personnel and was the only one in Iraq with a special impregnable tent, which filters the air in case of chemical attack - allowing doctors to continue working.

He was one of two surgeons and linked to them was the army's equivalent of an A&E department - a resuscitation team with four doctors.

He said: "The Iraqis were terrified about their injuries and how they were going to be treated by us. But you could see them breathing sighs of relief when interpreters spoke with them.

"About 30 or 40 people would come through in a 24-hour period with typical war wounds.

"My job was to evacuate cases back to the field hospital as quickly as possible and to identify those needing limb and lifesaving surgery immediately.

"We had to operate on them there and then. You find that rehabilitation is better if amputation is performed at an early stage, but you try your best to save a limb.

"You carry out arterial grafts to ensure blood supply and then evacuate to the UK where more definitive surgery can be carried out to reconstruct a joint or bone.

"But with blast injuries, sometimes the loss of a limb is the least of the worries. With shrapnel you can also develop compartment syndrome in which enormous swelling compromises the blood supply. Our most common wounds were still gunshot wounds and dealing with that can involve opening up the abdomen to resection a penetrated piece of bowel."

Mr Calder said the Iraqis showed no emotion on the arrival of the British, but after 10 days were more willing to believe Saddam had gone for good and began welcoming the troops.

The dressing station was then moved to a building in the grounds of one of Saddam's lavishly decorated palaces on the edge of Basra, near the Shatt el Arab waterway.

There was relief that house-to-house fighting was not necessary but there were still occasional mortar attacks on the palace compound and the unit had to be ready to move at 15 minutes notice. There was also the fear of suicide bombers coming in as patients and of personnel being picked off at night by Ba'ath loyalists.

Mr Calder also went out on the immediate response helicopter, picking up casualties, including Iraqi civilians.

He said the large amount of information spewed out by news organisations made the war a difficult one for families in the UK, including his wife Joanna and their two children Toby, three, and Alice, who is 18 months old. He flew back at the beginning of May and has since been working at his headquarters in London.

He said he looks back with some pride on having been involved. "The army really did a fantastic job. It's incredible how they secured that area in a rapid time frame."

He added: "I was expecting to be called up. If you take the Queen's shilling, then you have to expect it."

Mr Calder is due to start work at Basingstoke hospital and The Hampshire Clinic in July after a holiday.