AFTER flying into enemy territory in Iraq to rescue wounded troops, Flight Lieutenant Kevin Harris, based at RAF Benson, received one of the military’s top bravery awards.

But the helicopter pilot needed a different kind of courage to support his baby daughter Grace after she was born with life-threatening heart problems.

The Merlin pilot even had to postpone picking up his gallantry award from the Queen to support his daughter.

Now almost two, she has undergone a series of major heart operations and her father, 30, is planning a 60-mile run to raise cash for the hospitals which treated her.

Flt Lt Harris, who lives at the air base near Wallingford with wife Naomi, 32, and Grace, 20 months, has been serving in the RAF since 2001 and has also flown helicopters in Afghanistan.

The pilot’s daughter needed open heart surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, just four days after being born.

Then she needed further surgery at the hospital after medics at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, spotted a lack of oxygen in her blood.

Flt Lt Harris said: “She was only given a 10 per cent chance of making the journey. Yet again, despite the odds, she made it through the op.”

The youngster underwent a third operation in May last year to close holes between the left and right chambers of her heart.

Flt Lt Harris said: “I felt a great debt of gratitude for the work that had been done in saving my daughter’s life on three occasions.

“So when I was in Afghanistan earlier this year I decided to run between the two hospitals to raise money.”

He will run on May 1 between the JR and Great Ormond Street, via the A40, in a bid to raise £10,000.

Sponsor Flt Lt Harris at justgiving.com/JR2GOSH.