HUNDREDS of people have turned out to pay their respects to four soldiers killed in Afghanistan, including two from the North West, as their bodies returned to Britain.

Guardsman Christopher King, 20, of 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, from Birkenhead, Merseyside, and Corporal Joseph Etchells, 22, of 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, from Mossley, Greater Manchester were returned home.

Alongside them were Rifleman Aminiasi Toge, 26 and Captain Daniel Shepherd, 28. All four were killed in separate incidents in Helmand province earlier this month.

The men were flown into RAF Lyneham, Wiltshire, on board a C-17 Globemaster and a private ceremony for relatives was held in a chapel.

As has become tradition, the coffins, adorned with Union flags, were driven to the nearby town of Wootton Bassett for a memorial procession.

Cpl Etchells was killed on July 19 in an explosion while on foot patrol, near Sangin. Guardsman King died on July 22 while on foot patrol in the Nad-e-Ali District, when he stood on an explosive during Operation Panther’s Claw.

Under patches of blue sky and broken clouds, soldiers lined the streets of the town alongside Royal British Legion veterans, shopkeepers and residents to pay tribute to the fallen men.

As the cortege moved along the High Street, it passed the war memorial, which was covered in floral tributes, and a minute’s silence was held.

A lone cry from the crowd was heard over the silence as soldiers and civilians bowed their heads. A few members of the crowd threw flowers on to one of the hearses.

Rifleman Toge, of 2nd Battalion The Rifles, from Suva, Fiji, was killed on July 16 in an explosion while on foot patrol close to Forward Operating Base Keenan, near Gereshk. Capt Shepherd, from Lincoln, died following an explosion on July 20 as he tried to clear a route in Nad-e-Ali District.