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Further inside the city fierce fighting continued as tank rounds and Warrior machinegun fire were used to suppress the defenders. Some Fedayin lay on the ground, seemingly dead, before springing up in an attempt to launch rocket-propelled grenade attacks on the advancing British forces.

Captain Niall Brennan, of 1 Company First Battalion Irish Guards, was fortunate to survive one such attack, as he explained only moments later pointing at the corpse of his assailant a few yards away. “You see that dead guy. He’s the guy that tried to kill me just there.

“A lot of them were playing dead and he was playing dead, too. Then he got up, brought his RPG to bear on me. I couldn’t see him. The whole Army net radio was screaming: ‘Get down, RPG 20 metres from you.’

“But I had no idea where he was. One of my colleagues saw him and shot him. I would have known nothing about it if I hadn’t been saved.”

The crack of machineguns and the thud of artillery continued throughout the afternoon as sporadic resistance continued.

However, most Iraqis on the streets, the majority of them young men, seemed content with waves and friendly gestures as Saddam’s rule over the city, which had risen against him unsuccessfully in 1991, finally crumbled.

Signs of the scale of British success were everywhere, with bodies of Iraqi paramilitaries, scattered by the roadside. In one defensive position a dozen Iraqi fighters sprawled along a line of defensive positions made out of sandbags and mud. Ammunition boxes, dozens of rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs were scattered around them.

Bank notes displaying the smiling face of Saddam fluttered beside the dead men. Guardsman Luke Waite said: “We’ve done really well. If the other Iraqis who are still fighting for him come to see what’s happened here, then they’ll all have their hands up.”

There was a similar sense of jubilation back at the Royal Scots Battle Group Headquarters on the outskirts of Basra. Major Chris Brannigan, the Commanding Officer of B Squadron of the Royal Scots, said: “They were a cool determined enemy. There was no giving up.

“Every man had to be cleared out but we’ve done it very successfully. I’ve only got one hesh (tank) round left. One of the Warriors fired 3,000 rounds into one command bunker alone. It was an eight-hour battle in 38 degrees (100F) and there was a lot of fighting.” Major Ben Farrell, the Commanding Officer of 2 Company of the First Battalion Irish Guards, said: “The people from the Shia slums were ecstatic. We could see them cheering us and coming out to get their own back on the Fedayin.

“It was obvious that they couldn’t stand them and were delighted that they were finally on their way.”

Martin Bentham of The Sunday Telegraph is a pool reporter for the British press

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