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Wootton Bassett bells toll for Helmand’s latest dead
Terry Kirby10.07.09
Hundreds of mourners lined the streets in the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett today as the coffins of five British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan in the past week were driven past.
The crowds stood with their heads bowed as hearses draped in Union Flags passed slowly along the High Street, the silence broken only by the tolling of the bell in the parish church of St Bartholomew's.
The bodies arrived back in Britain at nearby RAF Lyneham this morning, hours after it was announced that two more soldiers had been killed — bringing the total to nine so far this month, an average of one a day.
It was the second solemn procession this week. On Monday the coffins of Lt-Col Rupert Thorneloe — the most senior British officer to die in combat since the Falklands War — and his driver, Trooper Joshua Hammond, 19, passed by.
Four of the men whose bodies were returned today were taking part in Operation Panchai Palang, or Panther's Claw, an assault in Helmand Province in which British and American air forces aim to secure river crossings in an area that has been a Taliban stronghold.
They were Private Robert Laws, 18, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, of 2nd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, and Lance Corporal David Dennis, 29, from Llanelli, south Wales, of the Light Dragoons, both of whom died on
Saturday; Lance Corporal Dane Elson, 22, from Bridgend, south Wales, of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, who was killed in an explosion on Sunday; Trooper Christopher Whiteside, 20, from Blackpool, of The Light Dragoons, who died near Gereshk on Tuesday. The final body was that of Captain Ben Babington-Browne, 27, from Maidstone, Kent, of 22 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers, who died in a helicopter crash in Zabul Province on Monday.
Crowds have appeared spontaneously along the streets of Wootton Bassett to pay their respects to the bodies of British service personnel since they started being brought home through RAF Lyneham in 2007. There have since been more than 70 such processions. After passing through the town, the bodies are taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where they are examined before being released to their families.
