A British hero. R.I.P. Corporal John Rigby. My deepest sympathies to your family and especially to your twin brother.

They were twins and, by coincidence, corporals in the same battalion. On Friday they should have been celebrating their 24th birthday. But it was not to be; Will Rigby sat at the bedside of his brother, John, in an Iraq field hospital and watched him die.

Corporal John Rigby had been fatally wounded by a roadside bomb near Basra Palace in southern Iraq that morning, and was named by the Ministry of Defence yesterday as the 153rd British serviceman whose life had been claimed by the conflict.

Will, described by friends as his brother’s lifetime companion and soulmate, will accompany the body back to the family home in Rye, East Sussex, where their parents, sisters and John’s girlfriend, to whom he was expected to propose, are grieving at their loss.

Corporal Rigby was on patrol with the eight men of his section, providing top cover from the hatch of his armoured vehicle, when the bomb exploded. He was the third member of the 4th Battalion The Rifles to die in Iraq in little more than a month.

Two weeks before his death he had learnt that he was to be promoted to sergeant, having achieved the highest score on the promotion board for any corporal in the regiment.

Encouraged by friends, he had been expected to propose to Jessica Varney, his girlfriend, on her 21st birthday next May.

Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Sanders, Corporal Rigby’s commanding officer, said that he and the battalion were “utterly heartbroken” at the death of an outstanding young soldier.

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