SOLDIERS have returned to York from Iraq and told of their exploits in the desert heat and sand.

About 300 members of 2 Signal Regiment came home to Imphal Barracks in Fulford Road yesterday after three months in the Middle East.

They spoke of working in horrendous sandstorms and temperatures as high as 55 Celcius, and of donning respirators and throwing themselves into trenches, fearing imminent chemical attack.

They also told of their role in providing communications support, first during the war for British armoured brigades, and then in the post-conflict struggle to help restore civilian telephone services.

As they spoke, it was revealed that next Tuesday they and their families will get a chance to talk to the Princess Royal as she pays an official visit to their headquarters, at Imphal Barracks in Fulford Road.

But the soldiers also received a warning from York police Inspector Andy Everitt, who said he wanted to ensure they did not end up in the Evening Press for the wrong reasons by getting involved in trouble.

He said that if they went out to celebrate their return, they might meet "nuggets" who would not understand the challenges and difficulties they had been through.

Among the returning soldiers was Second Lieutenant Scott Macpherson, who only joined the army in January last year and was planning to go home to Fangfoss yesterday to be reunited with his parents Roddy and Elizabeth.

He said the reception from Iraqis wherever he went had been friendly. "They were smiling and waving."

Staff Sergeant Dean Cartledge, 20, said he had worked with BT engineers who had been seconded to the Armed Forces to try to help repair Iraqi telephone exchanges that had been looted and ransacked. Signaller Matt Proudman, 20, told how, while at a holding camp in Kuwait, alarms had gone and everyone had feared they would come under chemical attack. "We put respirators on and went in the trenches. We thought we were going to get taken out."

HMS York will accompany the Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal into Portsmouth harbour tomorrow, after five months service in the Gulf. The Evening Press will be on board the type 42 destroyer, as crowds of more than 3,000 gather to greet the captain and crew as they sail into the historic naval base.

Updated: 10:54 Friday, May 16, 2003