Contingents of sailors and Royal Marines, as well as thousands of veterans of the Naval Service, joined members of the Royal Family and the Government in honouring those who died fighting for freedom around the world.

The National Service of Remembrance yesterday took place at the Cenotaph, where the Queen led the tributes to Britain’s war dead.

The Queen was joined by Prince William and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who watched around 9,000 veterans parade along Whitehall. More than 1,000 civilians were also involved in the ceremonies.

The Prince of Wales laid a poppy wreath, along with the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal and the Duke of Kent.

Mr Blair and other political leaders also laid wreaths, followed by Commonwealth High Commissioners and top military officers.

When all the wreaths had been laid, there was a short service conducted by Bishop of London, Richard Chartres.

The Princess Royal, as Rear Admiral Chief Commandant for Women in the Royal Navy, took the salute at Horse Guards of the columns of ex-Servicemen and women marched past.

But other members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, deployed or on exercise abroad, also found time in the past week to stop and pay silent tribute to those who served in their ships and units before them.

Type 42 destroyer HMS Southampton conducted a wreath-laying ceremony near the site of the loss of her predecessor, the fifth HMS Southampton, last Monday (November 8).

The Portsmouth-based warship, which is currently exercising with other NATO units in the eastern Mediterranean, took a brief break from her operational duties to commemorate the memory the wartime cruiser and the 81 members of her ship’s company who were lost defending the Malta convoys in January 1941.

HMS Southampton’s Commanding Officer, Cdr Christopher Hodkinson, said: “The story of the fifth HMS Southampton is but one example of the immense sacrifice made by the men and women of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Marine who served in the Mediterranean convoys during the Second World War

“We are fortunate to have the opportunity to pay our respects to our predecessors in the seas where they gave their lives defending the freedom of us all.”

Operator Mechanic David ‘Pepper’ Salter, aged 17 – the youngest member of HMS Southampton’s ship’s company, said: “Being at the site where so many people gave their lives for their country really makes the occasion all the more special and memorable.

“It makes you feel proud to serve in a ship with such a distinguished history as HMS Southampton.”

On New Year’s Day 1941 HMS Southampton was ordered to form part of the Third Cruiser Squadron, Mediterranean Fleet. After meeting another Malta-bound convoy on January 10, she was detached with HM Ships Gloucester and Diamond to proceed to Souda Bay in Crete.

At 3.20pm on January 11, whilst on transit to Souda Bay in company with Gloucester, she was attacked by a force of dive-bombers.

Southampton threw everything at the enemy aircraft, filling the skies with flak, and twisting and turning hard to dodge the bombs Several attacks were staved off before a number of bombers broke through the barrage, dropping two 500lb bombs in the aft section of the ship. The explosions caused extensive damage and many men were killed or injured.

The ship’s company fought hard to recover the damaged compartments, but were thwarted by a fierce fire which raged below decks. After more than three hours of struggle and many acts of heroism in the face of adversity, the fire was still burning and moving forward through the ship.

By 7pm it became clear that the ship was doomed. All of the survivors were taken off by HMS Diamond in a remarkably calm and successful rescue - as one of the survivors has since remarked, “none of us got our feet wet”.

Even then, Southampton refused to go down, and eventually Gloucester and Orion were forced to torpedo her. Eighty-one of the ship’s company were lost and 87 wounded in this action.

Other acts of bravery and sacrifice were recalled at a simple ceremony thousands of miles away, in the rarified atmosphere of the Sierra Nevada in the United States, where 600 blood-red poppies in the snow were a poignant reminder of the men of 45 Commando Royal Marines who have died in action.

The names of those who died in service during the past year was read out to the massed ranks of Royal Marines, commando-trained Gunners and Royal Engineers who make up the Commando Group at a special Remembrance Service in California.

At 10.58 am local time on Thursday November 11, the only sound in the forest clearing was a harmonica playing the Last Post, the instrument being handled skilfully by the Rev Mike Hills, the Group’s Royal Naval chaplain.

The men stood in a large semi-circle, ankle deep in snow, observing the two-minute silence in honour of their colleagues who had given the ultimate sacrifice.

The location was a large clearing known, appropriately enough, as Landing Site Dove in the forest above the US Marine Corps’ Mountain Warfare Training Centre at Pickel Meadows, near Bridgeport, California.

45 Cdo Group have been on Exercise Black Horse since the end of September.

The first phase saw them carry out a Combined Arms Exercise at the USMC Air Ground Combat Centre at 29 Palms in southern California.

The 900 square mile training area in the Mojave Desert was an ideal location for the Royal Marines to carry out live firing whilst integrating supporting fire from the Group’s own artillery and aircraft such as British Tornados and American B-1 bombers.

After five weeks in the desert, the commandos then moved north to MWTC Pickel Meadows and found a large snowfall awaiting them.

The snow was early this year and the Group were quick to take advantage of it.

The original Mountain Training package was swiftly replaced by Novice Ski & Survival Courses, normally carried out in Norway, and a variety of advanced courses for those personnel already trained in cold weather skills.

The Novice courses have just been completed, and a five-day Infantry Warfare Course was then due to take place to test their skills in this demanding environment

The changeover from desert to snow demonstrates the adaptability for which 45 Commando Group are renowned.

In recent years they have gone from peacekeeping in Kosovo to patrolling the hills of Afghanistan in search of Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents.

Last year they deployed to Iraq as part of Operation Telic and spent the first part of this year in Northern Ireland.

The Remembrance Service was held on Thursday, before the Infantry Warfare Course dispersed the various parts of the Group throughout the 46,000 acre training area.

Every man carried a poppy as they listened to Reverend Hills recite In Flanders Fields, the poem which gave rise to the poppy as a symbol for remembrance.

The poem was written by Lt Col John McCrae, a field hospital surgeon, after the battle of Ypres in 1915.

His words became the inspiration for Field Marshall Haig, who subsequently set up a fund to assist all those who suffered as a result of war.

The poppies grew between the crosses in Flanders Field, and have been symbolically used ever since.

On completion of the service, the men of 45v Commando slowly filed past a large mound of snow, purposely built for the occasion, and placed their poppies into it. At the bottom lay 3 sheets of A4 paper, laminated against the weather.

They contained the Roll of Honour, the names of 12 Royal Marines who had died in the last 12 months, and this liturgy to the fallen:

Poppy

Velvet blanket, silky smooth, soft touch,
Each jet – black seed, a single soldier,
A loved one; a lost one;
Every long thin stem, a hollow trench of sorrow
Clasped between cold hands…
Keep me in your thoughts

(Written in November 2002 by a nine-year-old child who was asked to reflect on the significance of Armistice Day)

The white snow of the mound was gradually replaced by the deep red of the poppies and left as a monument

The next snowfall may cover it up, but for the moment it is a reminder of the sacrifices made in the past and those which will continue to be made in the future; for the men of 45 Commando Group, that sacrifice is never far from their minds.

(HMS Southampton pics by CPO(PHOT) Dave Coombs