MOURNERS lined Headley Way in Oxford last night as the bodies of five British soldiers who died in Afghanistan within a week of each other arrived at the John Radcliffe Hospital yesterday.

The bodies of Private Lewis Hendry, Pte Conrad Lewis, Pte Robert Wood, Pte Dean Hutchinson and Lance Corporal Kyle Marshall were flown into RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire before the cortege passed through nearby Wootton Bassett and finally the JR where their post mortems will be carried out. Pte Wood and Pte Hutchinson, both of the Royal Logistic Corps, were killed in a fire at Camp Bastion, the main British military base in Afghanistan, on February 14.

L/Cpl Marshall, of 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was killed on the same day in an explosion in the Nahr-e Saraj district. Pte Hendry, of 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, and Pte Lewis, of 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, were shot in the north of Nad-e Ali district of Helmand Province on February 9.