Family to leave for UK to collect soldier's body

Private John 'Jack' Howard. Photo / Supplied

The family of the New Zealand soldier who died while fighting for the British Army in Afghanistan on Sunday will leave for London tonight to collect his body.

John "Jack" Howard, 23, died on Sunday after he was shot while on patrol in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province.

Britain's Defence Ministry is investigating whether the former Wellington College student was killed by friendly fire during a United States air strike called into support his unit.

Pte Howard's body would arrive at the Lyneham airbase in Wiltshire at midday on Tuesday and his family would be present, a British high commission spokesman told The Dominion Post.

The Lyneham base is the main arrival point for all repatriated soldiers killed in action.

The family had not yet read Pte Howard's will so no decision had been made about a funeral, but it is likely to be a full military service.

A full military funeral could be provided in Britain, or the military would contribute to a service in New Zealand, a British Defence Ministry spokesman said.

Pte Howard was the fifth New Zealand-born soldier to die in action in Afghanistan.

Lieutenant Timothy Andrew O'Donnell, 28, of Feilding, died on August 4 when his three-vehicle patrol was attacked with explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire in north-east Bamiyan Province. Two of his comrades were wounded.

In March last year, a New Zealand-born soldier in the Australian army, Corporal Mathew Hopkins, 21, of Christchurch, was shot dead in an intense fire-fight with Taleban insurgents near the village of Kakarak, 12km north of the Australian base at Tarin Kowt.

Former Aucklander Sean Patrick McCarthy, 25, a member of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, was killed when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in 2008, and Mr Goff's nephew, Cpt Ferrara, was killed in 2007.

- NZPA