“How cold is it? Let me just check,” said Private John Heaps, 19, from Lancaster cheekily checking his boxer shorts.

“It’s pretty cold!”

He was one of 354 soldiers who stripped almost naked at Blandford Camp on Sunday morning.

They beat the world record for the most people wearing their underpants in one place by 103.

The hordes of pale squaddies shivered under the clear sky for five minutes in temperatures of 7C.

There were some unusual fashion choices – Matt Haslett, 23, from Sunderland, wore his girlfriend’s suspender belt.

The men did the stunt in one of nine different world record challenges for the ABF The Soldiers Charity.

They also broke records for the number of people rubbing themselves in sunscreen and the most penalty kicks in one hour.

A pair of Gurkhas ran the fastest piggyback mile in 12 minutes 31 seconds, breaking the record by sixteen seconds.

Some challenges were too hard – two sweating and exhausted soldiers tried failed to beat record for the most step-ups with 40lb weights, a leg numbing 1,886 in one hour.

There were six successes and three failures and they raised more than £10,000.

The idea came from Regimental Sergeant Major Mickey Yendell of 11 Signal Squadron.

He said: “The ABF is our charity for the year and our target is £60,000.”