MORE than a hundred people took part in a merchant navy march and remembrance service in Newport.
Members of the Merchant Navy Association from Newport and all over the country, as well as Newport and Gwent dignitaries and others, joined together to honour sailors who died in conflict.
Marchers headed from the Royal British Legion on Queen Street onto Cardiff Road before arriving at the Merchant Navy Memorial at Mariners Green, Newport for the remembrance service on Saturday morning.
The service came after Newport mayor Councillor John Guy unveiled a memorial to the late Raymond Victor Steed a 14-year-old Newport boy who was the youngest Welsh person to ever been killed in action.
The remembrance service was led by Father Edward Mathias-Jones, chaplain of the Merchant Navy Association city of Newport branch.
Mr Flynn read words from Laurence Binyon's poem For the Fallen before the sounding of the Last Post and a two minutes silence.
Ms Morden then read the Kohima Epitaph, before wreaths were placed at the Merchant Navy Memorial by the vice Lord Lieutenant of Gwent Commodore Toby Elliot and High Sheriff Elizabeth Murray.
The mayor, Mr Flynn and Ms Morden, AMs William Graham and John Griffiths, other councillors and officers of Newport council and members of other associations also laid wreaths.
Earlier a dedication service at the Usk Riverfront saw the unveiling of a memorial to Newport's Raymond Victor Steed, who was just 14 years and 207 days old when a U-boat mine struck his vessel The Empire Morn and exploded in 1943 during the Second World War.
The boy, who worked in the ship's galley, was buried in the British Cemetery at Ben M'Sik at Casablanca, on the road to Marrakesh.
The campaign for the memorial had been led by the late Bert Bale, the former chairman of the Newport branch of the Merchant Navy Association who died earlier this year [2012].
Fundraisers with the association collected more than £5,000 to bring the memorial, now located on the Usk Riverfront in Newport, to a reality.
Before he unveiled the memorial Newport mayor and Cllr John Guy asked the crowd of around 30 people to remember Mr Bale.
"I think he is probably with us today. He was a driving force.
He was a person with great determination," he said.
