AFGHAN hero Capt Lisa Jade Head will be laid to rest on Friday.
A funeral service with full military honours will be held in her home town for the 29-year-old bomb disposal officer from Almondbury.
She died in hospital on April 19, hours after being flown to hospital in Birmingham, having been badly wounded in deadly Helmand province.
Capt Head was caught in a blast while trying to defuse an improvised explosive device.
Minutes earlier she had defused another bomb left in an alleyway, designed to kill or main Allied troops.
She had been on the frontline of the bitter conflict for little over three weeks.
Friday’s funeral service for Capt Head will be at St Peter’s Church, Huddersfield.
Police are expected to seal off several streets in the town centre to allow large crowds to attend the service.
The service will be conducted by an Army padre and by the Rev Roger Nelson, who has been conducting some services at the church since the departure of the Vicar of Huddersfield, the Rev Catherine Ogle.
The new incumbent the Rev Simon Moor is due to be inducted in July.
Many ex-servicemen’s organisations are expected to take part in the funeral, which will be followed by a private burial for members of her family, including parents Leila and John and sisters Helen and Jayne.
Capt Head, a former University of Huddersfield student, died in the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital in Birmingham after being flown home badly injured from the frontline.
She was serving with 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, the Royal Logistic Corps, who have tragically lost six members in the Afghan conflict.
She was working with a patrol of Paras in Nahr-e-Saraj, Helmand Province, when the improvised explosive device went off.
Capt Head was the second female British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.
The first was Sarah Bryant, a 26-year-old member of the Intelligence Corps, who died along with three SAS men in a roadside bomb attack in Lashkar Gah.
Capt Head’s family, of Daw Royds, Almondbury, have been grieving in private since the tragic news was released last month.
They said at the time: “We wish to say that we are extremely proud of Lisa.
“Lisa always said that she had the best job in the world and she loved every second of it.
“Lisa had two families – us and the Army.
“Lisa had a fantastic life and lived it to the full. No-one was more loved.”
“She will, justly, be remembered among the ranks of the bravest of the brave.”
