Britain's newest, and also most sombre, tradition took place again yesterday.
Since 2007, when British troops have been killed in Afghanistan, their bodies have flown back to to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire.
Each body is then placed in a hearse and the cortege makes its way along the A3102, through the little town of Wootton Bassett just 6 miles outside of Swindon, to be taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
When people of the town started noticing these hearses passing through their town and realised they were the bodies of fallen British soldiers, they started lining the streets of the town to salute the fallen soldiers as they pass by.
Now, thousands of people from across the country gather in Wootton Bassett to welcome home the brave lads who fell in Afghanistan whenever their coffins pass through the town.
Until 2007, Wootton Bassett was famous for being the town where Katherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII, lived.
Now it's famous for a different reason.
The A3102 is nicknamed the Highway for Heroes, but many people want to it to be officially named as such (I think something similar exists in Canada).
There have also been calls for the Queen to honour the town by renaming it Royal Wootton Bassett.
Last week was one the bloodiest week for British forces in Afghanistan so far, with 15 soldiers killed. Eight were killed on the same day, the highest total of British soldiers killed on the same day in Afghanistan since September 2006 when 14 were killed in a helicopter crash.
The cortege with the bodies of Cpl Jonathan Horne, Rifleman William Aldridge, Rifleman James Backhouse, Rifleman Joseph Murphy, Rifleman Daniel Simpson, Cpl Lee Scott, Rifleman Daniel Hume and Private John Brackpool, is the largest yet to drive through the market town of Wootton Bassett.
Yestersay, 4000 people lined the main street of Wootton Bassett to welcome home the soldiers. Hundreds cried. Some were so inconsolable with grief they collapsed.
The British death toll in Afghanistan now stands at 184, higher than that of the Iraq War, which is 179. And, unfortunately, it's almost certainly a matter of time before the number exceeds the 255 British soldiers killed in the Falklands War.
The British people are remarkably stoic during war and, despite the increasing number of British deaths, public support for the war has increased by 15% since 2006.
And a poll by a national newspaper has found that 64% of people believe British troops should stay in Afghanistan.
But no matter the politics involved, the British people ALWAYS have a fierce respect for their soldiers, sailors and airmen.
'I miss him so much. The real tragedy is he won't be the last to be killed out there': Thousands line streets to salute eight victims of our darkest day in Afghanistan
By Paul Harris and Tamara Cohen
15th July 2009
Daily Mail
The stark reality of war: Against a cloudy sky the body of Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, is carried from the huge RAF C17 transport plane and borne to a waiting hearse
She had tried to be strong, fought so hard to hold back her tears.
But the pain of watching her heroic childhood sweetheart come home in a coffin took Sasha Buckley almost to the brink of collapse yesterday.
Clutching flowers, and with someone's steady hands on her shoulders, the 20-year-old joined thousands of others in tribute to Britain's fallen soldiers, home from Afghanistan.
Her friend, Rifleman Daniel Hume, 22, was one of eight repatriated after one of the darkest days in the eight-year war.
They died in a 24-hour period, the heaviest-loss of combat troops so far and the worst casualty tally since 14 died in a Nimrod explosion in Afghanistan in 2006.
Moving display: The cortege passes through the packed streets of Wootton Bassett
An estimated throng of 4,000 lined the main street through Wootton Bassett, the Wiltshire market town which traditionally turns out to honour the dead after they are transported from RAF Lyneham nearby.
At first the eight coffins were met with silence, a still envelope of mourning and respect. But suddenly applause broke out, cutting through the solemnity of this deeply poignant farewell - and opening the floodgates of grief.
Weeping young men strode out into the cortege to place flowers and a football shirt on the hearse above one of the coffins.
Relatives buckled in tears as the procession passed by.
It was the most powerful tribute a nation could offer eight brave soldiers who gave their lives for their country while fighting someone else's war.
Enlarge
Heartbreak: Sasha Buckley, 20, breaks down in tears as the cortege passes through. Right, her childhood sweetheart, Rifleman Daniel Hume of the 4th Battalion The Rifles, who was killed last Friday
Yesterday it spoke louder than any words or hollow promises our politicians could muster to explain the growing slaughter of British troops in Afghanistan.
In the blazing sunlight of an otherwise miserable afternoon, thousands turned out in the little pocket of England that hosted the heroes' welcome home.
Wootton Bassett has come to symbolise the debt of gratitude owed by so many ordinary people to so many servicemen and women.
Yesterday may have been its most emotional hour.
There were eight of them to remember. Eight hearses, eight coffins draped in Union flags. Eight proud lives and eight wasted futures.
They all died last week in Britain's darkest day of combat, the heaviest front-line loss since this seemingly unwinnable war began eight years ago.
It made Wootton once again the focus of national attention as the community came to a standstill, just as it has done these last two years for every military repatriation from nearby RAF Lyneham.
Enlarge
Homecoming tears: Friends of fallen serviceman Jimmy Backhouse react as the cortege of hearses passes by
But this was not just a public tribute. It was personal, too. In the crowd yesterday were friends and relatives of the dead, the first chance they had to gather to pay their respects.
A private ceremony at Lyneham had been limited to seven close family members for each of the fallen young men. It was followed by some intensely personal moments alone with them in the chapel.
So it wasn't hard to understand why there were so many tears a few miles down the road as some of them joined the throng.
NUMBER OF DEATHS IN AFGHANISTAN PER NATION
United States: 712
Britain: 184
Canada: 122
Germany: 38
France: 28
Denmark: 26
Spain: 25
Netherlands: 19
Italy: 15
Romania: 11
Australia: 10
Poland: 9
Others: 24
So many flowers, too, tossed at the cortege in scenes reminiscent of Princess Diana's funeral all those years ago.
Rifleman William Aldridge's grieving aunt brought roses. Alison Aldridge, 40, and her cousin Hayley Nicholls, 16, set up a small shrine beneath the pillars of the old town hall, a Tudor-style building in the centre of the High Street. They bedecked their space with bunting and photographs of the bright-eyed young soldier.
'It's so important to me that I came today,' Alison told me. 'I'm here as a mark of respect, to show my gratitude for what Will has done. He gave his life. The least I can do is give my time. I'm here not just for him, but for the others as well.'
Enlarge
People throw flowers onto the cortege of hearses carrying the bodies of eight British soldiers killed on a single day last week
Enlarge
Young friends of the dead soldiers cry as hearses containing their bodies pass
And Sasha Buckley spoke of the last time she saw Daniel.
The childhood sweethearts had been together on and off for six years, after meeting at school in their home town of Maidenhead.
Though they had recently split, he came in to the hairdressing salon where she worked to say goodbye, gave her 'one last cuddle' and promised he would be all right.
Yesterday her face contorted with grief as his flag- draped coffin passed just inches in front of her eyes.
She told the Daily Mail afterwards of her fears about equipment shortages which could inflict the same suffering on other families.
'He's gone forever,' she said. 'I just miss him so much and want the pain to go away.
'The real tragedy is that he won't be the last soldier killed out there.
There will be many more coming home unless the Government give them the support they need. That means more equipment now - soldiers like Dan deserve better.'
Home from hell: The faces of the eight British soldiers who died in a 24-hour period in Afghanistan
The repatriation began with a service in the Afghan desert, then with a flypast from the C17 RAF transport plane that carried the coffins into Lyneham.
One by one they were unloaded from the back in a 'ramp ceremony' before a joint service conducted inside the RAF station's chapel.
The drive to Wootton and beyond was escorted by police from two constabularies and marshalled with practised, almost invisible skill.
The arrival of the hearses was heralded by the tolling of a bell at St Bartholomew's church, the signal for everything to stop.
In seconds yesterday, an entire community was united in respect.
Staff and customers filed out of shops to join the crowd.
Teenagers and schoolchildren stood side by side with pensioners and ex- servicemen in dignified silence. The spontaneous applause spread through all generations.
There was a common feeling here yesterday of being witnesses to history.
And a spirit, perhaps, that underlined public support for the men and women prepared to put their lives on the line some 3,500 miles from home.
You had only to look at their faces in the newspapers and on TV to realise the human cost of that. Three of the dead were barely 18 years old.
Enlarge
The cortege with the bodies of Cpl Jonathan Horne, Rifleman William Aldridge, Rifleman James Backhouse, Rifleman Joseph Murphy and Rifleman Daniel Simpson, Cpl Lee Scott, Rifleman Daniel Hume and Private John Brackpool, is the largest yet to drive through the market town of Wootton Bassett
One was a father of two. Others were looking forward to weddings and families of their own. Now their relatives were being forced to plan their funerals.
In the coming days there will be eight more names on gravestones around the country somewhere, and a series of permanent gaps in unconnected family trees.
A baby girl will grow up never knowing her father. A weeping mother's hopes for her 'brilliant' son will never be fulfilled.
In the crowd, relatives hugged and stood shoulder to shoulder with members of bereaved families they had never met.
Every one of them had dreaded a homecoming like this, but at least they could share a little of the pain. Nor was it simply some anonymous mass tribute. Most of the casual onlookers I spoke to seemed to know all the names of the dead.
Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, and Riflemen William Aldridge, James Backhouse and Joseph Murphy, all 18, were rescuing comrades from an earlier blast when a second device detonated.
Inconsolable: Help from another mourner as a distraught woman (left) collapses, while tears flow (right) as one of the hearses goes past
Honour: Soldiers salute as yesterday's tragic cortege
Rifleman Murphy was carrying Rifleman Daniel Simpson, 20 - who was injured by the first makeshift bomb - when both were killed in the following explosion.
Rifleman Aldridge, from Bromyard, Herefordshire, was attempting to reach casualties from the first blast, despite being wounded himself.
Also on the sombre flight home was Corporal Lee Scott, 26, of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, who died in an explosion on the same day, just north of Nad-e-Ali, during Operation Panther's Claw.
Making up the eight were two men killed in separate incidents on Thursday. Private John Brackpool, 27, of Prince of Wales' Company, of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was shot at Char- e-Anjir near Lashkar Gah, while on sentry duty.
Rifleman Daniel Hume, of 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed in an explosion while on a foot patrol, again near Nad-e-Ali.
Some of their military colleagues, like 2nd Royal Tank Regiment Sergeant Steve Anderson, knew how touched the soldiers would have been by the recognition.
The 30-year-old veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan turned out with former 2RTR colleague Michael Wright, 27, to show their support. 'If it was me instead of them today,' said Sergeant Anderson, 'I'd be honoured that so many people were paying their respects.'
Long before the cortege came to town the crowd could be counted in hundreds.
The moment was almost too much to bear for some. Two young men, maybe brothers, linked arms, embraced and wept.
One of them pushed through police and a solid rank of rifleman to place a bunch of white flowers on the roof of a passing hearse.
Elsewhere, the roof of another hearse was garnished with a football shirt. The family of Rifleman James Backhouse held aloft his favourite Mansfield Town colours bearing the words 'RIP Jimmy' as his coffin passed before them.
This was pride and respect bursting out, and the same kind of emotion was visible everywhere. Not just for young lives dedicated to a single cause, but for the heroism they showed by putting the safety of their injured friends before their own.
Those who survived the first blast that day in Helmand gave their lives to save injured colleagues. Theirs was the ultimate sacrifice.
So it was fitting that the families' pride was mirrored in little clutches of sadness along the 60-mile route the cortege took from Lyneham to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington, Oxford, where post mortem examinations will be carried out.
In laybys and by the roadside, on bridges and flyovers, cars came to a respectful halt as drivers bowed their heads in respect.
In the last ten days there have been 15 deaths in Afghanistan. Gordon Brown insists that Britain does have enough men and resources to 'do the job'.
So too - for the moment at least - does Wootton Bassett.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199626/Thousands-pack-streets-Wootton-Bassett-bodies-British-soldiers-killed-Afghanistan-return-home.html#ixzz0LLeewRKu&C
dailymail.co.uk
Since 2007, when British troops have been killed in Afghanistan, their bodies have flown back to to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire.
Each body is then placed in a hearse and the cortege makes its way along the A3102, through the little town of Wootton Bassett just 6 miles outside of Swindon, to be taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
When people of the town started noticing these hearses passing through their town and realised they were the bodies of fallen British soldiers, they started lining the streets of the town to salute the fallen soldiers as they pass by.
Now, thousands of people from across the country gather in Wootton Bassett to welcome home the brave lads who fell in Afghanistan whenever their coffins pass through the town.
Until 2007, Wootton Bassett was famous for being the town where Katherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII, lived.
Now it's famous for a different reason.
The A3102 is nicknamed the Highway for Heroes, but many people want to it to be officially named as such (I think something similar exists in Canada).
There have also been calls for the Queen to honour the town by renaming it Royal Wootton Bassett.
Last week was one the bloodiest week for British forces in Afghanistan so far, with 15 soldiers killed. Eight were killed on the same day, the highest total of British soldiers killed on the same day in Afghanistan since September 2006 when 14 were killed in a helicopter crash.
The cortege with the bodies of Cpl Jonathan Horne, Rifleman William Aldridge, Rifleman James Backhouse, Rifleman Joseph Murphy, Rifleman Daniel Simpson, Cpl Lee Scott, Rifleman Daniel Hume and Private John Brackpool, is the largest yet to drive through the market town of Wootton Bassett.
Yestersay, 4000 people lined the main street of Wootton Bassett to welcome home the soldiers. Hundreds cried. Some were so inconsolable with grief they collapsed.
The British death toll in Afghanistan now stands at 184, higher than that of the Iraq War, which is 179. And, unfortunately, it's almost certainly a matter of time before the number exceeds the 255 British soldiers killed in the Falklands War.
The British people are remarkably stoic during war and, despite the increasing number of British deaths, public support for the war has increased by 15% since 2006.
And a poll by a national newspaper has found that 64% of people believe British troops should stay in Afghanistan.
But no matter the politics involved, the British people ALWAYS have a fierce respect for their soldiers, sailors and airmen.
'I miss him so much. The real tragedy is he won't be the last to be killed out there': Thousands line streets to salute eight victims of our darkest day in Afghanistan
By Paul Harris and Tamara Cohen
15th July 2009
Daily Mail
The stark reality of war: Against a cloudy sky the body of Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, is carried from the huge RAF C17 transport plane and borne to a waiting hearse
She had tried to be strong, fought so hard to hold back her tears.
But the pain of watching her heroic childhood sweetheart come home in a coffin took Sasha Buckley almost to the brink of collapse yesterday.
Clutching flowers, and with someone's steady hands on her shoulders, the 20-year-old joined thousands of others in tribute to Britain's fallen soldiers, home from Afghanistan.
Her friend, Rifleman Daniel Hume, 22, was one of eight repatriated after one of the darkest days in the eight-year war.
They died in a 24-hour period, the heaviest-loss of combat troops so far and the worst casualty tally since 14 died in a Nimrod explosion in Afghanistan in 2006.
Moving display: The cortege passes through the packed streets of Wootton Bassett
An estimated throng of 4,000 lined the main street through Wootton Bassett, the Wiltshire market town which traditionally turns out to honour the dead after they are transported from RAF Lyneham nearby.
At first the eight coffins were met with silence, a still envelope of mourning and respect. But suddenly applause broke out, cutting through the solemnity of this deeply poignant farewell - and opening the floodgates of grief.
Weeping young men strode out into the cortege to place flowers and a football shirt on the hearse above one of the coffins.
Relatives buckled in tears as the procession passed by.
It was the most powerful tribute a nation could offer eight brave soldiers who gave their lives for their country while fighting someone else's war.
Enlarge
Heartbreak: Sasha Buckley, 20, breaks down in tears as the cortege passes through. Right, her childhood sweetheart, Rifleman Daniel Hume of the 4th Battalion The Rifles, who was killed last Friday
Yesterday it spoke louder than any words or hollow promises our politicians could muster to explain the growing slaughter of British troops in Afghanistan.
In the blazing sunlight of an otherwise miserable afternoon, thousands turned out in the little pocket of England that hosted the heroes' welcome home.
Wootton Bassett has come to symbolise the debt of gratitude owed by so many ordinary people to so many servicemen and women.
Yesterday may have been its most emotional hour.
There were eight of them to remember. Eight hearses, eight coffins draped in Union flags. Eight proud lives and eight wasted futures.
They all died last week in Britain's darkest day of combat, the heaviest front-line loss since this seemingly unwinnable war began eight years ago.
It made Wootton once again the focus of national attention as the community came to a standstill, just as it has done these last two years for every military repatriation from nearby RAF Lyneham.
Enlarge
Homecoming tears: Friends of fallen serviceman Jimmy Backhouse react as the cortege of hearses passes by
But this was not just a public tribute. It was personal, too. In the crowd yesterday were friends and relatives of the dead, the first chance they had to gather to pay their respects.
A private ceremony at Lyneham had been limited to seven close family members for each of the fallen young men. It was followed by some intensely personal moments alone with them in the chapel.
So it wasn't hard to understand why there were so many tears a few miles down the road as some of them joined the throng.
NUMBER OF DEATHS IN AFGHANISTAN PER NATION
United States: 712
Britain: 184
Canada: 122
Germany: 38
France: 28
Denmark: 26
Spain: 25
Netherlands: 19
Italy: 15
Romania: 11
Australia: 10
Poland: 9
Others: 24
So many flowers, too, tossed at the cortege in scenes reminiscent of Princess Diana's funeral all those years ago.
Rifleman William Aldridge's grieving aunt brought roses. Alison Aldridge, 40, and her cousin Hayley Nicholls, 16, set up a small shrine beneath the pillars of the old town hall, a Tudor-style building in the centre of the High Street. They bedecked their space with bunting and photographs of the bright-eyed young soldier.
'It's so important to me that I came today,' Alison told me. 'I'm here as a mark of respect, to show my gratitude for what Will has done. He gave his life. The least I can do is give my time. I'm here not just for him, but for the others as well.'
Enlarge
People throw flowers onto the cortege of hearses carrying the bodies of eight British soldiers killed on a single day last week
Enlarge
Young friends of the dead soldiers cry as hearses containing their bodies pass
And Sasha Buckley spoke of the last time she saw Daniel.
The childhood sweethearts had been together on and off for six years, after meeting at school in their home town of Maidenhead.
Though they had recently split, he came in to the hairdressing salon where she worked to say goodbye, gave her 'one last cuddle' and promised he would be all right.
Yesterday her face contorted with grief as his flag- draped coffin passed just inches in front of her eyes.
She told the Daily Mail afterwards of her fears about equipment shortages which could inflict the same suffering on other families.
'He's gone forever,' she said. 'I just miss him so much and want the pain to go away.
'The real tragedy is that he won't be the last soldier killed out there.
There will be many more coming home unless the Government give them the support they need. That means more equipment now - soldiers like Dan deserve better.'
Home from hell: The faces of the eight British soldiers who died in a 24-hour period in Afghanistan
The repatriation began with a service in the Afghan desert, then with a flypast from the C17 RAF transport plane that carried the coffins into Lyneham.
One by one they were unloaded from the back in a 'ramp ceremony' before a joint service conducted inside the RAF station's chapel.
The drive to Wootton and beyond was escorted by police from two constabularies and marshalled with practised, almost invisible skill.
The arrival of the hearses was heralded by the tolling of a bell at St Bartholomew's church, the signal for everything to stop.
In seconds yesterday, an entire community was united in respect.
Staff and customers filed out of shops to join the crowd.
Teenagers and schoolchildren stood side by side with pensioners and ex- servicemen in dignified silence. The spontaneous applause spread through all generations.
There was a common feeling here yesterday of being witnesses to history.
And a spirit, perhaps, that underlined public support for the men and women prepared to put their lives on the line some 3,500 miles from home.
You had only to look at their faces in the newspapers and on TV to realise the human cost of that. Three of the dead were barely 18 years old.
Enlarge
The cortege with the bodies of Cpl Jonathan Horne, Rifleman William Aldridge, Rifleman James Backhouse, Rifleman Joseph Murphy and Rifleman Daniel Simpson, Cpl Lee Scott, Rifleman Daniel Hume and Private John Brackpool, is the largest yet to drive through the market town of Wootton Bassett
One was a father of two. Others were looking forward to weddings and families of their own. Now their relatives were being forced to plan their funerals.
In the coming days there will be eight more names on gravestones around the country somewhere, and a series of permanent gaps in unconnected family trees.
A baby girl will grow up never knowing her father. A weeping mother's hopes for her 'brilliant' son will never be fulfilled.
In the crowd, relatives hugged and stood shoulder to shoulder with members of bereaved families they had never met.
Every one of them had dreaded a homecoming like this, but at least they could share a little of the pain. Nor was it simply some anonymous mass tribute. Most of the casual onlookers I spoke to seemed to know all the names of the dead.
Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, and Riflemen William Aldridge, James Backhouse and Joseph Murphy, all 18, were rescuing comrades from an earlier blast when a second device detonated.
Inconsolable: Help from another mourner as a distraught woman (left) collapses, while tears flow (right) as one of the hearses goes past
Honour: Soldiers salute as yesterday's tragic cortege
Rifleman Murphy was carrying Rifleman Daniel Simpson, 20 - who was injured by the first makeshift bomb - when both were killed in the following explosion.
Rifleman Aldridge, from Bromyard, Herefordshire, was attempting to reach casualties from the first blast, despite being wounded himself.
Also on the sombre flight home was Corporal Lee Scott, 26, of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, who died in an explosion on the same day, just north of Nad-e-Ali, during Operation Panther's Claw.
Making up the eight were two men killed in separate incidents on Thursday. Private John Brackpool, 27, of Prince of Wales' Company, of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was shot at Char- e-Anjir near Lashkar Gah, while on sentry duty.
Rifleman Daniel Hume, of 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed in an explosion while on a foot patrol, again near Nad-e-Ali.
Some of their military colleagues, like 2nd Royal Tank Regiment Sergeant Steve Anderson, knew how touched the soldiers would have been by the recognition.
The 30-year-old veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan turned out with former 2RTR colleague Michael Wright, 27, to show their support. 'If it was me instead of them today,' said Sergeant Anderson, 'I'd be honoured that so many people were paying their respects.'
Long before the cortege came to town the crowd could be counted in hundreds.
The moment was almost too much to bear for some. Two young men, maybe brothers, linked arms, embraced and wept.
One of them pushed through police and a solid rank of rifleman to place a bunch of white flowers on the roof of a passing hearse.
Elsewhere, the roof of another hearse was garnished with a football shirt. The family of Rifleman James Backhouse held aloft his favourite Mansfield Town colours bearing the words 'RIP Jimmy' as his coffin passed before them.
This was pride and respect bursting out, and the same kind of emotion was visible everywhere. Not just for young lives dedicated to a single cause, but for the heroism they showed by putting the safety of their injured friends before their own.
Those who survived the first blast that day in Helmand gave their lives to save injured colleagues. Theirs was the ultimate sacrifice.
So it was fitting that the families' pride was mirrored in little clutches of sadness along the 60-mile route the cortege took from Lyneham to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington, Oxford, where post mortem examinations will be carried out.
In laybys and by the roadside, on bridges and flyovers, cars came to a respectful halt as drivers bowed their heads in respect.
In the last ten days there have been 15 deaths in Afghanistan. Gordon Brown insists that Britain does have enough men and resources to 'do the job'.
So too - for the moment at least - does Wootton Bassett.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199626/Thousands-pack-streets-Wootton-Bassett-bodies-British-soldiers-killed-Afghanistan-return-home.html#ixzz0LLeewRKu&C
dailymail.co.uk
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