MERCHANT Navy veterans and young members of Newport's Sea Cadets stood together this morning to remember the sacrifices of those who died in conflict at sea.

The annual Service of Remembrance run by the City of Newport branch of the Merchant Navy Association (MNA) honours those who helped keep supplies moving during wartime in the midst of danger from enemy ships and u-boats.

Veterans led a short parade from the Royal British Legion in the city's Queen Street to the Merchant Seamen's Memorial at Mariners' Green.

During a service, led by the Reverend Mark Lawson-Jones, South Wales Port Chaplain for the Mission to Seafarers, tribute was paid to the thousands who made the ultimate sacrifice whilst serving on merchant vessels..

Eleven standards representing branches of the MNA and other organisations were lowered as the Last Post was sounded by a lone bugler, before a two-minute silence. A number of wreaths were then laid, as the base of the memorial was swathed in red, white and blue.

The service remembers those lost in multiple conflicts. But in the year of the centenary of the armistice that ended the Great War, losses suffered during 1914-18 were much to the fore.

In a message in the Order of Service, Lord Lieutenant of Gwent Brigadier Robert Aitken CBE, president of the City of Newport branch of the MNA, said it is fitting to celebrate what the end of the First World War achieved.

"And it is particularly fitting that we should remember the contribution made by the British Mercantile Marine," he wrote.

Praising the sailors' "courage, ingenuity and dogged determination", he concluded: "Let us be grateful to them for standing up to imperial aggression; for doing what they believed was the right thing, whatever the cost; and for demonstrating the very finest characteristics of a free, civilised nation".

Alan Speight, chairman of the city's MNA's branch, said it is important to continue to honour the wartime sacrifices of the Merchant Navy.

"Merchant seamen played a vital role in the war efforts - it was said by an admiral of the First World War that without them the war would have been lost in a week," he said.

"I'm gladdened that people come out to remember their sacrifices."