CHEERING, flag waving crowds gave a hero's reception to soldiers from 4th Battalion The Rifles - the Lions of Basra - when they marched through Salisbury on Tuesday.

Thousands of people lined the route from the Cathedral Close into the city centre, in what was possibly the biggest welcome home given to troops locally since the end of the Second World War.

And they burst into spontaneous applause and cheering as the 522 soldiers from the Journal's adopted regiment, led by the Band of The Rifles, passed by.

The soldiers themselves appeared surprised by the scale of the turnout and the emotional charged atmosphere.

As the parade arrived at the Guildhall and "fell out", the battalion's proud Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Sanders said: "It was just amazing to march past so many people - and so touching.

"It was a real buzz being out there marching and all the lads appreciated it. The battalion, through its links with the old Wiltshire regiment, has a strong relationship with Salisbury and we are very proud of that."

The soldiers only returned to their barracks at Bulford Camp a fortnight ago, after a successful but gruelling and sometimes tragic six month deployment in Iraq - and were invited to parade through the city by Mayor, Kevin Cardy, to give local people the chance to honour them.

Before setting out on the parade, the troops gathered in the Cathedral Close, where watched by a crowd of several hundred, they were inspected by the Mayor and the Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire and the county's High Sheriff.

It was a ceremony also attended by members of the city's Chartered Trustees and some 14 other Lord Lieutenants from The Rifles' recruiting areas across the country.

In an address to the battalion, the Mayor spoke of the city's pride, in what he described as "our regiment" and hailed the soldiers for the difficult and dangerous challenge they had undertaken in Basra and the "enormous courage and resilience they had shown."

After marching through the city, many of the soldiers attended a reception for 350 guests, hosted by the Mayor in the Guildhall, while others were given time off to enjoy specially-reduced price refreshments in city pubs and restaurants.

The 4 RIFLES Battlegroup was based at Basra Palace for the first four months of their tour in Iraq, and the soldiers successfully withstood rogue militia, who attacked them with more than 2,000 mortar and rocket attacks, 400 rocket-propelled grenade attacks and 100 Incendiary Explosive Devices.

However, the Battlegroup hit back twice as hard, mounting several successful operations to detain numerous senior insurgents.

Tragically, the battalion lost five of its soldiers during the tour: Cpl Jeremy Brookes, 28, Cpl Rodney Wilson, 30, Major Paul Harding, 48, Cpl John Rigby, 24, and Rfn Edward Vakuba, 23. The RIFLES Battlegroup as a whole lost 11 men and had 62 soldiers injured during the six month operational tour.

Two other soldiers from the battalion, LCpl Nathan Long, 22, and LCpl Paul Knight, 20, died in a road traffic road accident at Bulford Camp on November 21. LCpl Knight had returned from Iraq just hours earlier.