“MY face was on fire. Petrol poured down behind me and into the back. Luckily I had goggles on. It was panic. You don’t think about anything, you just want to put the flames out.”

Sergeant George Long, 29, of the Staffordshire Regiment, yesterday described to The Times the moment he had to dive in flames from his Warrior armoured vehicle as a furious mob closed around it outside a Basra police station.

It was a moment witnessed by millions on television in Britain and sparked off a new wave of soul-searching about Britain’s role in Iraq.

As the vehicle moved towards the al-Jameat station to help troops to rescue two servicemen seized by Iraqi police, the optical scopes through which the commander steers were smashed. Sergeant Long had to open his turret to guide the vehicle without crushing the mob or British troops. Then a petrol bomb lobbed through the turret hatch set him and his gunner alight.

“The petrol came down on both of us,” he said. He plunged to the ground. “I just remember hitting the deck and rolling and rolling, trying to get the flames out, hearing soldiers shout ‘stay down, stay down’.” The flames were extinguished and he was pulled away by other troops.

Behind him his gunner fell in flames on to the Warrior’s side. Badly injured with serious burns, he was evacuated and is in hospital in Britain.

From his nearby Warrior, the company commander, Major Andy Hadfield, saw what was happening. “I saw them come out as fireballs, and I felt sick. They were my soldiers,” he said. “Then five minutes later, I heard Sergeant Long back on the radio. He said he was back in the vehicle but needed a new gunner as the last one was a casualty.”

In the late afternoon, the soldiers briefly withdrew and were fired at with rockets and small arms. But they deployed to al-Jameat again after a six-man negotiation team who had tried to get the release of the first two prisoners was surrounded by the mob. It was only then that Major Hadfield realised that Sergeant Long’s burns were more than superficial.

“He is a modest man and a professional,” the major said. “It was nine hours before I discovered that he had actually been burned badly around his waist and back. Nine hours in which he had chosen to get back into his Warrior and continue. That is some example.”

Official sources in London are now trying to play down Monday’s clashes, suggesting only 150 rioters were involved. But in Basra the story that emerges from officers and men is of a mob up to 1,000 strong, some clearly armed, battling with troops over several hours, resulting in the use of live ammunition against the crowd.

The two soldiers were eventually rescued from a private house in a later operation that resulted in the virtual destruction of the police station.

Second Lieutenant John Cliffe, a 25-year-old platoon commander with the Staffordshire Regiment, was also seen by millions on TV when he abandoned his blazing Warrior and leapt into the mob of rioters below.

“There was a hell of a lot of flame. It was Catch-22: do I stay and go up in flames or get out? There was burning fuel seeping through my turret on to my gunner and me. The vehicle was stalled. The radio was jammed. We were getting hammered by petrol bombs and burning tyres. I thought I had a fighting chance. So I jumped.”

He was nearly 30 metres from the nearby line of the Coldstream Guards who, on foot and in full riot gear, were themselves being assailed by rocks and petrol bombs.

They saw Second Lieutenant Cliffe jump from his vehicle, followed quickly by his gunner.

Knowing his life was in danger, one of the soldiers fired into the mob and he scrambled to safety. But the Iraqi casualties had little impact on the rioters. “They backed off, but only for a small period. Gunfire is a daily occurrence for them,” Company Sergeant-Major John Sheard said.

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