RAF desert crash victims given military funeral in Cairo . Silent crowds line street . The seven men three British Army officers and four members of the RAF who were killed when the troop carrying plane in which they were passengers crashed and was fired by a landing flare during night operation at Mersa Matruh on the Libyan border were given a full military funeral in Cairo . Representatives of King Farouk and the Egyptian Government , with Sir Miles Lampson , British High Commissioner , followed the gun carriages to the British cemetary . Detachments from every British regiment in Egypt lined the route . Photo shows , the funeral cortege passing through the lines of British troops on the way to the British cemetary in Cairo . Tractors drew the gun carriage , it is believed for the first time , at the ceremony . 12 July 1936