In Brize Norton, tears and bugles for the fallen

The bodies of the first 10 servicemen killed in this Gulf War were flown home yesterday and delivered to their families with care and ceremony. The tailgate of a transport aircraft opened on to the Tarmac at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire after a 14-hour flight, and the coffins were carried out, one by one, slowly and to the mournful accompaniment of the band of the Royal Marines.

Each was draped in a Union flag and carried by six members of the same service in dress uniform. Three chaplains stood close by with heads bowed, their cassocks whipped by the wind like the ensign flying at half mast above the passenger terminal. The families of the dead watched from a roped-off area, alongside the braided chiefs of staff, who saluted each fallen man. There too was the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, whose government gave the order that sent the 10 to the Gulf. However wise or foolish that decision, the effects of it could now be heard and seen close up in the sobs and shaking shoulders of the men and women close to him who had lost a son, a lover, a friend.

Eight of the men had died on board a US helicopter that nosedived into the desert. Two were the crew of an RAF Tornado jet returning to base. They were killed by a Patriot missile fired by their allies.

It took an hour for the ceremony to be completed: six minutes for each coffin to be carried past the band and eased into a waiting black hearse which would take it to the airfield gymnasium. This served as a temporary morgue where the Oxfordshire coroner could make last checks, sign the paperwork and release each body to its family. The most senior of them was Major Jason Ward, 34, from Plymouth. The youngest was Lance Bombardier Llywelyn Evans of Llandudno, aged 24.