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Thousands of people paid their respects on Tuesday to eight soldiers killed in Britain's bloodiest 24-hour period in Afghanistan.
Crowds lined the streets as the coffins draped in Union Jack flags were driven slowly through the small town of Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, southwest England, after the bodies were flown to a nearby airbase.
Friends and relatives of the dead tossed flowers on to the hearses and the sound of sobbing could be heard above a ripple of applause.
The families of the dead soldiers, three of whom were 18-year-olds, earlier attended a private ceremony at a chapel of rest after the coffins were unloaded one by one from a transport plane at the RAF Lyneham base.
The eight deaths, which lifted the number of British military fatalities in Afghanistan to 184 -- five more than in the Iraq campaign -- have prompted questions about British tactics and allegations that troops are under-equipped.
As the mounting human cost of eight years of fighting in Afghanistan was laid bare to the British public, the head of the army said the soldiers had not died in vain.
General Sir Richard Dannatt said the victims' families should take "great comfort" that they had died carrying out an essential mission ensuring that Afghanistan would not be a launch pad for terror attacks on Britain.
"It is really important not just for Afghanistan or for this region, it is really important for the overall security of the West and of the United Kingdom. We must get this right, we will get this right," he told BBC radio.
Five of the servicemen repatriated were members of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles who died in two roadside explosions near Sangin in Helmand province on Friday.
Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, and Riflemen William Aldridge, James Backhouse and Joseph Murphy, all 18, were rescuing comrades from an earlier blast when they were killed in a second explosion.
Murphy was carrying Rifleman Daniel Simpson, 20 -- who was injured by the first makeshift bomb -- when both were killed in the subsequent blast.
Aldridge was attempting to reach casualties from the first blast, despite being wounded himself.
His aunt, Alison Aldridge, 40, who was in the crowd in Wootton Bassett, said: "It is extremely sad that his life was taken so swiftly, but I take comfort from the fact that he had two very fulfilling years rather than a lifetime of regrets."
In the wake of the deaths, the British government has faced strong criticism over claims that troops in Afghanistan were being put at risk by an acute shortage of equipment, especially helicopters.
But the spokesman for the British task force in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Nick Richardson, told the BBC it was a "sad fact that helicopters would not have saved the lives" of the soldiers killed last week.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown fended off calls to send more troops, saying on Monday he had been reassured by commanders on the ground in Afghanistan that "we have the manpower we need for the current operation."
Merlin helicopters and Ridgeback armoured vehicles which can resist the Taliban's powerful roadside bombs are being sent to Afghanistan later this year.
And eight Chinook helicopters used in Iraq are being converted to cope with the harsh Afghan weather conditions.
Casualties have increased sharply since British and Afghan forces last month launched Operation Panther's Claw, which is aimed at removing the threat from Taliban insurgents in Helmand ahead of next month's Afghan elections.
Britain has raised troop numbers from 8,300 to 9,000 for the election period.
About 4,000 US Marines are also battling their way into some of the most dangerous insurgent strongholds in Helmand.
