A memorial fund has been set up to help Royal Anglian soldiers Welcomed home

Military commentators have said it was one of the toughest tours of duty in the regiment's 43-year history.

Nine members of the regiment, nicknamed the Vikings, died during the six month tour in Helmand province.

Lt Col Stuart Carver said: "There will not be a town in East Anglia that does not know someone who has been injured."

The regiment, currently based in Pirbright, Surrey, recruits from Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire.

Awareness of what's going on out there, the ferocity of the fighting, is limited amongst the general public Lt Bjorn Rose

Joseph Tanner-Tremaine, a member of the regiment, told BBC News: "It feels great to be back here now, I'm really relieved but being out there is just my job, it's what I get paid for.

"It has been hard sometimes, you keep on hearing bullets pass over your head and you're not sure if that's going to be it, but at the end of the day, you get back into your base or camp and you're just happy to be back."

The soldiers were welcomed home at the barracks in Surrey by family and friends as well as Defence Minister Derek Twigg.

The regiment's Lt Bjorn Rose said the public were not aware how fierce the fighting was.

"General awareness of what's going on out there, the ferocity of the fighting, what they're going through day to day is limited amongst the general public and that is an issue.

"However, I think through publicity that the campaign's now getting I think awareness is increasing so I think it's a lot better for them".

Life and limb

In a recent letter to the Eastern Daily Press, Col Carver said troops had been involved in some of the most ferocious close-quarter combat the British Army has ever seen.

He said the 600 men and women of the battalion represented the "best of East Anglia", and they had risked life and limb to make Afghanistan a safer place and win the trust of the local population.

Fifty-seven soldiers from the regiment have also been wounded in battle.

A memorial fund has been established to provide assistance to Royal Anglian soldiers who have been seriously wounded and help to the families of those killed.