Eight soldiers flown home from Afghanistan
The bodies of eight British soldiers killed during the Army's bloodiest 24 hours in Afghanistan, including two from the West Midlands, were flown home today.
The families of the fallen men, three of whom were teenagers, were at RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire, to see the coffins, draped in Union flags, carried from the C17 aircraft.
A private ceremony at the chapel of rest was being held this afternoon, before eight hearses drive through the town of Wootton Bassett, watched by an expected crowd of hundreds.
Among the servicemen repatriated today are five soldiers from 2nd Battalion The Rifles who died near Sangin in Helmand province on Friday in two "daisy-chain" explosions.
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.
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, 22, of 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed in an explosion while on a foot patrol, again near Nad-e-Ali.
