Warrant Officer Class One (WO1) Henry Sanday joined the British Army in early 2001 as an infantry man with 1st Battalion The Royal Green Jackets. The Battalion is now called The Rifles Regiment. WO1 Sanday was born in 1980 and is originally from Fiji, in the South Pacific. He is married to Ophia Samsara Sanday.
WO1 Sanday’s operational deployments include Sierra Leone and two tours in Basra Iraq; two tours in Northern Ireland; one in Kosovo; and three tours in Afghanistan. The first tour in Afghanistan was as a light role infantry section Commander (Corporal). He was a Serjeant on his second tour, and also in Sangin as Advisor and mentor to an Afghanistan Army Infantry Company. His third tour was in Kabul as the Company Quartermaster where he helped close down and hand over Camp Souter in order to relocate his infantry battlegroup to New Kabul Compound (NKC). WO1 Sanday has also served in other Infantry specialist platoons; these include Machine Guns platoon, Snipers and Recce. He has also conducted overseas exercises as a light role Infantry platoon Serjeant in Kenya and also as a light role Infantry Recce platoon 2IC in Canada.
WO1 Sanday was then posted to the Mission Training Mobilisation Centre (MTMC) in 2015 where he spent one year teaching Communication Negotiating Behavioural Detection (CNBD) to all British units deploying on Operation as part of their Pre-Deployment training. He then took over the role of Chief Instructor (CI) for Afghanistan, training British battlegroups for deployment. WO1 Sanday then took over the post of Infantry Fire Support (FSp) Company Serjeant Major (CSM) with the 5th Battalion The Rifles, which is an infantry armoured battalion. As CSM, he was responsible for the Fire Support platoons from Snipers, Recce, Anti-Tanks, Mortars and Assault Pioneers. WO1 Sanday was in post for 2 years and included the preparation of his Company for operations with the Enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroup in Estonia.
WO1 Sanday was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Bravery for his utter professionalism and courage as a commander under the most complicated of situations during an attack in Afghanistan in April 2019.
Command Senior Enlisted Leader
WO1 Sanday is the Command Senior Enlisted Leader (CSEL) in the Joint Support Enabling Command in Ulm, Germany. He serves as a principal advisor to the Commander, Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, on matters concerning non-commissioned officers and the moral component of the Headquarters’ staff. He is also responsible for mentoring the JSEC staff and representing their needs to the leadership ensuring that from the lowest level we all understand the mission.