Salutes were given, the bands played. Then silence, as the families took their boys home

The six naval ratings who carried Ian Seymour on to home soil yesterday were wearing black silk with their dress uniforms. The silk is always worn at ceremonial events in honour of the death of Lord Nelson. There have been many deaths since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, for a variety of causes, some noble, some dubious. It is a matter of pride among servicemen and women that they do as commanded, to the best of their ability. And when the cost of action has to be counted it is they who pay.

Operating Mechanic Seymour was the first British casualty of the latest Gulf War to be brought back to his waiting family. Usually the dead are buried close to where they fall. This time an exception was made, and the ceremony shown live on television.

At 12.30pm six ratings from HMS Collingwood in Portsmouth brought the coffin down the ramp of a huge C17 cargo plane and across the tarmac at RAF Brize Norton, where the band of the Royal Marines Three Commando Brigade was playing a sombre march by Handel.

OM Seymour, 28, was one of eight troops who climbed aboard a US Sea Knight helicopter in Kuwait on the first night of the war and prepared to go in to battle for the first time. Their task was to join the attack on the Al-Faw peninsula, securing oil fields and supply lines. Some oil was already burning and the air was full of thick black smoke, which some say is the reason why the helicopter crashed. Others point to its history of mechanical problems: last year all the Sea Knights in US service were grounded after a crack was discovered in a rotor blade. This time the four American crew members were killed, along with all eight British men.

The Duke of York, himself a former helicopter pilot, who saw combat deaths in the Falklands, saluted their bodies alongside the commanders of the Royal Marines, the Fleet and Land Command. Some of the families stood outside the passenger terminal, others preferred to keep their grief private behind plate glass as their loved ones were returned. After being taken to the makeshift mortuary in the airfield gym each body was to be released for burial wherever the families chose.

The youngest of them was Lance Bombardier Llywelyn Evans, Welly to his mates, who died aged 24. He joined up at 17 and had served in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. "We are all devastated," said his father, Gordon, in a statement from the family home in North Wales before the ceremony. He has another son serving in the same unit. "Whilst we are deeply saddened, we are and always will be proud of him."

He was a member of 29 Commando Regiment of the Royal Artillery, along with Ian Seymour and Sergeant Les Hehir, whose body was also returned yesterday. Sergeant Hehir was 34 years old and lived in Poole, in Dorset, with his wife and two sons. "The loss we feel is really too much to bear," his wife Sharon had said. Major Jason Ward, 34, was the oldest of the Royal Marines brought home. The others who died in the helicopter were Captain Philip Guy, 29, Warrant Officer Mark Stratford, 39, Sergeant John Cecil and Marine Sholto Hedenskog, 26.

American commanders have apologised for the mistake that killed Flight Lieutenants Kevin Main, 37, and David Williams, 35, the last two bodies to be brought out of the transporter yesterday. Flt Lt Main had been flying over Iraq for the last eight years, on and off, patrolling the air exclusion zone, and was due to be promoted to squadron leader when he returned to base in Norfolk in July.

"He had a dream to fly in the Dambusters Squadron and he achieved it," said his father Colin. "I'll always treasure the time we had together as long as I live."

The pilot and his navigator were flying back from a bombing raid on Baghdad, looking forward to the safety of their base, when an American Patriot missile system locked on to their jet. The electronic system believed it was seeing an incoming Scud missile, so fired and hit their plane.

Yesterday members of the Queens Colour Squadron dressed in white gloves shouldered one coffin, then another. Air Marshal Sir John Day saluted the bodies. Then the band stopped playing. The musicians, the commanders, the chaplains, the Minister of Defence and the families filed away in silence.