Captain Herbert Richard Westmacott MC (11 January 1952 – 2 May 1980) was a British Army officer who became the first person to be awarded a posthumous Military Cross.

As an officer of the Grenadier Guards (2nd Battalion)[1] on extra regimental employment to the Special Air Service (SAS), he died in an encounter with the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

He was in command of an eight-man plainclothes SAS patrol that had been alerted by the Royal Ulster Constabulary that IRA gunmen had taken over a house on Antrim Road, Belfast.

[3] As the SAS arrived at the front of the house the IRA unit, nicknamed the "M60 gang", opened fire from a window with an M60 machine gun, hitting Westmacott in the head and shoulder and killing him instantly.

[7] Several men, including Angelo Fusco, Paul Magee and Joe Doherty, were convicted in absentia of murder in June 1981 by the Northern Ireland authorities after they escaped from custody.