Prince Harry opens up about extreme torture training in the army - 'Two guys went mad'

Prince Harry's military career in Afghanistan has been subject to intense scrutiny after he revealed he killed 25 Taliban in his controversial memoir Spare.

Criticised widely for this apparent “boast” - a charge Harry has firmly rejected, saying his comments have been taken out of context - the revelation has even sparked condemnation from the Iranian government.

But Harry’s description of his time in the army contains much more than his personal kill count. He shares specific accounts of his experiences of serving in the army, including one section that details an intense training exercise intended to allow service people to withstand torture

The training exercise was called "Escape and Evasion" which Harry completed as one of the final parts of his training before being deployed as an Apache helicopter pilot. It was so extreme, Harry outlines in his book, that after it was over he found out "two other soldiers in the exercise had gone mad".

Harry explains that he and his fellow trainees thought they had completed the exercise, when they suddenly found themselves ambushed by "a group of men in camo jackets and black balaclavas".

What happened next, Harry claims, "was illegal under the rules of the Geneva Conventions, which was the whole point".

"Suddenly a group of men in camo jackets and black balaclavas appeared. My first thought was of Lord Mountbatten being ambushed by the IRA – I don’t know why. Entirely different circumstance, but maybe some vestigial memory of terrorism, deep in my DNA", Harry wrote.

"There were explosions, gunshots, guys storming the truck and screaming at us to look down at the ground. They wrapped blacked-out ski goggles over our eyes, zip-tied our hands, dragged us off."

He then claims he was taken through a series of damp, underground rooms.

"In some rooms we were treated well, in others we were treated like dirt. Emotions went up and down. One minute we’d be offered a glass of water, the next we’d be shoved to our knees and told to keep our hands above our heads. Thirty minutes. An hour. From one stress position to another. We hadn’t really slept in seventy-two hours."

The purpose of this was to "confuse and disorient" them, and Harry describes a series of humiliating comments they were subjected to before being interrogated.

The duke also describes how those holding them had learned private information through trawling one of his fellow soldier's social media accounts in an attempt to scare him before

Harry also claims he was subjected to comments regarding conspiracy theories surrounding the death of his mother, Diana — which he received a "half-arsed apology" for once the exercise was over.

"There was a debrief, during which one of the instructors offered a half-arsed apology about the stuff to do with my mother. 'Hard for us to find something about you that you’d be shocked we knew.' I didn’t answer."

"We felt you needed to be tested." Harry recalls them saying, before he claims that once the exercise was complete he found out that two others involved "had gone mad" during the 72-hour exercise.

Harry also discusses in Spare his disappointment when a planned deployment to Iraq was cancelled and how the army influenced both his relationship with his family and his own sense of identity.

Yahoo UK has contacted the Ministry of Defence for comment

Watch: What The Crown completely made up about Diana and Dodi