Officer who defied 'withering fire" wins the Military Cross faced 'withering enemy fire" Capt Michael Dobbin, 28, fought his way through a Taliban stronghold where he was being shot at from as little as five yards away, and "never once flinched from danger" as he did so. He gave the first eyewitness account of the incident in Helmand, in which L/Cpl Ashworth, 23, suffered gunshot and grenade injuries as he tried to flush out a sniper who was putting his comrades" lives in danger. Capt Dobbin's platoon from 1st Bn, The Grenadier Guards, went into a compound last June where a lone gunman was "spraying" bullets. L/Cpl Ashworth went ahead alone and was shot. Capt Dobbin said "the grenade that he had primed fell beside him and went off." Lieutenant Commander Al Nekrews, 40, is the Navy's first ever high-threat improvised explosive device (IED) operator and was deployed to Afghanistan for seven months last year where he led a four-man team in Nahr-e Saraj, one of the busiest districts. On May 25, Lt-Cdr Nekrews, from Wythenshawe, Manchester, and his team were dispatched to the scene of an explosion that had injured a British soldier and discovered what appeared to be a rug draped over barbed wire protecting a ditch. He said: "Inside the rug were two devices configured in an unusual manner. I had to make a manual approach to defuse the devices. It took 16 hours over two days. We got around three hours sleep. It was reaching about 40 degrees in temperature and we were under constant threat of attacks. Once the devices were defused, Lt-Cdr Nekrews handed them over for intelligence gathering purposes. A clearance diver by trade, Lt-Cdr Nekrews joined the Navy 24 years ago as a rating before being commissioned in 2002. Divers are the Navy's maritime explosive ordnance disposal experts but they can also be deployed on land operations such as Afghanistan. On receiving the medal, he said: "It was quite surreal. I am really proud of what I have achieved and my family are obviously all delighted as well. I should also praise the efforts of my team, Leading Diver Craig Waghorn and Sergeant Craig Simpson. It was invaluable to have that support."" The Queen's Gallantry Medal is one level below the George Medal and is awarded to military personnel for acts of exemplary bravery that were not in the presence of the enemy.