Update: Soldiers arrive back in the UK (From Oxford Mail)

Update: Soldiers arrive back in the UK

11:56am Monday 6th July 2009

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A plane carrying the bodies of two soldiers killed in Afghanistan - including the most senior British Army officer to be killed since the Falklands War - has landed.

Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, from Kirtlington - the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards - was killed in a blast which hit his Viking armoured vehicle near Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Wednesday.

Trooper Joshua Hammond, 18, of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, also died in the explosion.

The C-17 Globemaster transporting their coffins landed at RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire, at 11.05am.

A private memorial for close relatives will be held at a chapel on site before the coffins pass through the nearby town of Wootton Bassett.

Hundreds of British Legion veterans, shopkeepers and residents are expected to line the streets of the town later this afternoon to pay their respects.

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