Sarah home in the arms of Army and family

By Keir Mudie

Last updated 15:17, Tuesday, 24 June 2008

She came home a hero.

Video: Sarah Bryant's repatriation

Solemn moment: The coffin carrying Corporal Sarah Bryant, inset, arrives at RAF Lyneham

The body of Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first female British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan, arrived back in Britain yesterday.

Her grief stricken parents, husband and best friend were at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire where a short repatriation ceremony took place on the airfield as Cpl Bryant’s body arrived.

Her parents, Des and Maureen Feely, her husband Carl and friend Krista Whelpdale watched as the coffin was slowly removed from the plane before being carried on the shoulders of her fellow soldiers to a waiting hearse.

Cpl Bryant, 26, who was in the Intelligence Corps, described by her family as their own Angel of the North, was killed while taking part in an operation east of Lashkar Gah when her Land Rover was hit by a mine. She died along with Cpl Sean Robert Reeve, 28, of the Royal Signals, and Lance Cpl Richard Larkin, 39, and Paul Stout, 31.

Cpl Bryant, a former pupil of Caldew School in Dalston, had been in the Army for six years and was based in Chicksands, Bedfordshire, as part of the Intelligence Corps’ Psychological Operations Group.

She was posted to Afghanistan on March 15 2008 with 152 Delta Psychological Operations Effects Team in support of the Helmand Task Force within the PSE, serving with the Headquarters of 16 Air Assault Brigade as the Target Audience Analyst. She had also served in Iraq.

Cpl Bryant’s Army officer husband Cpl Carl Bryant, to whom she had been married for just two years, said of her: “Although I am devastated beyond words at the death of my beautiful wife Sarah, I am so incredibly proud of her.

“She was an awesome soldier who died doing the job that she loved.

“My wife knew the risks, she was there because she wanted to be, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way.”