The timing was precise, the formation impeccable. At 1pm, to the cheers of crowds along the Thames, the Red Arrows display team accompanied by four Typhoon fighters performed a flypast to mark the 90th anniversary of the Royal Air Force. It was a performance executed with the trademark excellence of the Armed Forces on parade.

Two and a half hours later, directly under the flightpath, politicians and the public were reminded of the bleaker, less predictable realities of war. Addressing the House of Commons, from where the flypast had been heard, Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, announced that a planned withdrawal of 1,500 British troops from Iraq has been placed on hold.

The long-awaited move to reduce personnel at Basra air station to 2,500, as set out by the Prime Minister last October, would not go ahead.

Mr Browne told MPs that troop numbers would instead be remaining at their current level of about 4,000 in response to recent bloody violence sparked by the Iraqi Government’s “strike operations” against Shia militias in the southern city. He gave no new date when the troops might return.

The Defence Secretary insisted that “our clear direction of travel and our plan” remained to reduce British troop numbers in the country.

But he admitted that even before the events of last week, “the emerging military advice, based on our assessment of current conditions then, was that further reductions might not be possible at the rate envisaged in the October announcement”.

On a day that marked another major military anniversary – the centenary of the founding of the Territorial Army – other events further underlined the ungovernable nature of current conflicts. Inquests of ten serviceman who died when an RAF Hercules was shot down in Iraq heard the last desperate radio message as the aircraft went down.

“No duff, no duff, we are on fire, we are on fire,” Lance Corporal Steven Jones, a passenger on the aircraft, radioed before all communication was lost, the hearing was told.

The low-flying C130K transporter was shot down between Baghdad and the nearby Balad air base at 1.30pm on January 30, 2005. Enemy fire from the ground pierced a fuel tank causing it to explode and blow off a wing. Nine RAF servicemen and one soldier died.

David Masters, the Wiltshire Coroner, giving his opening address, reminded the hearing that this was “the largest loss of life to hostile action in a single incident sustained by the RAF since the Second World War”.

He told the hearing in Trowbridge, near the aircraft’s home base at RAF Lyneham, that the inquest would be “full, frank and fearless”.

He said: “The question is whether the ten personnel may have survived if their aircraft had been fitted with ESF [explosive supressant foam]. It is a question we will seek to address.”

Hercules operated by the US and Australian air forces are equipped with the system, which has since been installed in all RAF C130s operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two commandos who died on Sunday in Afghanistan were named by the Ministry of Defence yesterday. Lieutenant John Thornton, 22, and Marine David Marsh, 23, both of 40 Commando, died in Helmand province when their vehicle was caught in an explosion. Their families and colleagues described both as heroes.

“The Royal Marines was his passion and love. He will always be our hero,” Claire Marsh, the wife of Marine Marsh, with whom he had a young daughter, said. Lieutenant Thornton’s parents, Linda and Peter, and his brothers Ian and Graham, said that he had wanted to be a commando since he was 13 and had previously served in Iraq after joining up in August 2004. “He died a hero, following his dream,” the family said.

Mr Browne paid tribute to the two servicemen, whose deaths bring the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since the start of operations in November 2001 to 91.

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