Reserve commandos have hosted 75 combat engineers from America for a week of blowing up bridges and team bonding.

Having trained together six times in the last eight years, 131 Independent Commando Squadron RE from Kingsbury were joined by a team of American marines of the 6th Engineer Support Battalion USMC for a week of tough military exercises.

The groups started their training at a camp in Chivenor, north Devon, before heading out onto the Dartmoor moors to perfect upland navigation, load carrying and cliff assault techniques.

Teams then headed on to Bovington and Weymouth, in Dorset, for a variety of tasks including bridge building and demolition, amphibious landings and helicopter familiarisation.

Being the only Army Reserve unit with its own dive team, the divers also took advantage of the fast moving waters of the Fleet at Wyke Regis, also in Dorset.

US marine LCpl Brandon McDaniel, a forklift operator from Illinois in his day job, said: “I can gladly say that the training in the UK was an opportunity of a life time.

“I left the country for the first time with a chance to meet new lifelong friends and meet up with my British counterparts I met last year in Virginia.

“I'm very thankful for the hard work that everyone put in so that we could have this training opportunity, and memories to last us forever.”

Before the US marines jumped on board their plane home, the last two days involved cultural trips to Portsmouth Harbour and Sandhurst.