The bodies of six soldiers killed in the deadliest single attack on British forces in Afghanistan since 2001 were given an emotional welcome home by grieving relatives on Tuesday.
Mourners lined the road as six hearses carrying the coffins, all draped in the Union Jack, were driven from a Royal Air Force base in southern England, where they had arrived on a Hercules plane.
In a routine now familiar in Britain, which has lost more than 400 service personnel in Afghanistan since 2001, relatives and friends placed dozens of flowers on the roofs of the hearses as the sound of sobbing pierced the air.
Grieving relatives of the victims, five of whom were aged 21 and under, wore T-shirts emblazoned with their faces as they gathered in the southern English town of Carterton.
The body of the oldest victim, 33-year-old Sergeant Nigel Coupe of the 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, was carried in the first hearse.
The soldiers had only been in Afghanistan a few weeks when a huge explosion ripped through their armoured vehicle during a patrol on March 6 near the city of Lashkar Gah in violence-torn Helmand province.
Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack, which pushed the number of British dead in Afghanistan over the 400-mark.
The scenes in Carterton resembled those seen many times in Wootton Bassett, the town in southwest England through which the bodies of 345 service personnel passed over four years, often watched by crowds of thousands.
When the RAF base for the repatriation of the bodies was changed last year, the government decided to build a memorial garden at Carterton as a focal point for grieving families.
Britain is the second biggest contributor of troops to Afghanistan after the United States with 9,500 soldiers, but it is set to pull out all combat forces by the end of 2014 in line with other NATO nations.
The government has said the deaths of the six men — the greatest British loss of life in Afghanistan since 14 crew were killed in a plane crash in 2006 — will not change the timetable for withdrawal.
Five of the victims repatriated on Tuesday were from 1st Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment, whose commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Bradbury, said: "It is a real testament to the character of our soldiers that they are determined to carry on the mission and take the fight to insurgents."
