Captain Philip Guy, 29, was one of eight British troops killed alongside four US Marines when a US Sea Knight helicopter they were aboard crashed south of the Kuwaiti border on March 21, the day after the war began.

Guy died during his final scheduled mission in Iraq before a planned return to Britain to attend the birth of his second child.

Guy's wife, Helen, 30, gave birth Tuesday to her daughter, Emily Catherine, at a hospital in the couple's home town of Skipton, northern England. The baby weighed eight pounds three ounces (4.5 kilograms).

The Marine, whose body was flown to Britain on Saturday, also leaves behind a 20-month-old son, Henry. The couple married in 2000.

"I want to enjoy my baby as much as possible in these difficult circumstances," Helen Guy was quoted in The Daily Telegraph as saying.

Philip Guy's mother, Anne, said of the baby: "She's gorgeous, a little joy in all our lives. We are all delighted. It was a natural birth which went well."

"Mum and baby are both fine and have been allowed home. Some think she looks like my mother, Philip's gran, but I am not sure," she said.

The family was told that Guy had successfully completed his final mission to capture an oil pumping station in Iraq when the helicopter crashed on its return to base.

"In just two and a half years, we will have been to a wedding, a christening and a funeral," The Daily Telegraph quoted Guy's mother as saying.

"He was a very brave and courageous soldier and will be sadly missed by his family and all who knew him," she added.

Guy's military funeral, delayed because of the birth, will take place in Skipton next week.

Twenty-seven British soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the war two weeks ago, 17 of them in accidents. Five have been killed by friendly fire and five have died in combat.

SPACE.WIRE