The grieving nation then held a moment of silence to honor those killed in the crash of the jetliner, downed last week by a suspected surface-to-air missile over war-torn eastern Ukraine.

The bodies, borne in simple wooden caskets, were solemnly unloaded from the two military planes that returned them from Ukraine, and then slowly into a fleet of waiting hearses. The only sounds: the hushed orders of marching soldiers and a whipping wind.

The somber ceremony in Eindhoven followed a moving and meaningful send-off in Ukraine, where white-gloved soldiers respectfully carried the bodies of the victims to the aircraft that flew them home to a waiting Dutch king and queen on the nation’s official day of mourning.

The nearly martial honors afforded the remains in both cities contrasted sharply with how they were first treated in death — first blown out of the sky, then allowed to remain exposed to the elements for days. In some cases, furious Dutch officials say, they were stripped of their personal belongings.

Of the 298 people who died aboard Flight 17, 193 were Dutch citizens, and it was virtually impossible to miss the signs that the Netherlands was a nation in mourning Wednesday.

Flags were flown at half-staff, and the nation’s iconic windmills were placed in “mourning position” — wings tilted to the right. Courts suspended all trials, and even commercials were pulled from Dutch television and radio.

Buses and trains were to stop on roads nationwide during the moment of silence, and landings at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport were paused as a sign of respect.

The commemorations come amid continued confusion over who shot the plane down, and why, and what may have happened to the evidence where the plane fell to earth in fields deep in eastern Ukrainian territory controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

‘Black boxes’ arrive in UK

It took days for Ukrainian rebels who control the area of the crash site to hand over the bodies and the airliners’ black boxes to Malaysian officials.

Now, the voice and flight data recorders are in Britain for what will be a detailed scouring by international analysts, officials said.

The Dutch Safety Board is leading the Flight 17 investigation. Dutch officials had asked for help from British accident investigators to retrieve data from the boxes for international analysis, British Prime Minister David Cameron said.

Analyzing data from the black boxes could take several weeks, the Safety Board said.

But the black boxes might not help answer the two most pressing questions: who shot down the plane, and why.

And after global debate over whether planes should fly over conflict zones, the Safety Board said it will conduct two additional probes: “an investigation into the decision-making for flight routes and an investigation into the availability of passenger lists.”

Some bodies unaccounted for

Once in the Netherlands, the bodies will be taken to a military facility for forensic testing, Dutch officials say. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it could take weeks or even months to identify the remains.

Officials gave conflicting reports about how many bodies were on the train that traveled from the crash site to the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday.

Malaysian official Mohd Sakri, who traveled on the train with the remains, said there were 282 corpses and 87 body parts aboard — the same tally Ukrainian officials earlier gave to describe the remains recovered from the crash site.

But Dutch investigators only confirmed there were at least 200 bodies transported from the crash site, according to Jan Tuinder, head of the Dutch delegation

Another Dutch official said investigators were still going through the train cars and it was possible that all the crash victims were on the train.

But officials said Monday that at the least, the bodies of 16 people were still unaccounted for. Their remains may still be scattered across a debris field spanning several miles.

Bodies landed near orphanage

The massive and ghastly debris field means many residents are traumatized.

Children at an orphanage in Rozsypne village were playing outside when the plane exploded. They saw the body of one boy hit the earth.

One of their teachers, Valentina, remembers their horror.

“These are dead bodies!” the children screamed, Valentina said.

She points to a large divot in the grass where a woman’s body had landed, not far from where the children were playing.

Some of the orphans screamed, Valentina said. Others just sat and cried.

The latest accusations

Meanwhile, the finger-pointing between Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian rebels and the United States over who shot down the plane gets more complicated by the day.

On Wednesday, a U.K. security source said the British government has intelligence showing a surface-to-air missile was launched from rebel-held territory in the seconds before Flight 17 crashed. Their findings suggest the weapon was a Buk missile system, known in the West as the SA-11, according to the source.

The analysis comports with U.S. findings released last week by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.

The U.K. source also said British officials say they find “persuasive” conversations intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence indicating separatists had an SA-11 in their possession as early as July 14.

U.S. officials say pro-Russian rebels were responsible for shooting down the plane, but they say the rebels probably didn’t know they were targeting a commercial airliner.

Less clear is who was ultimately responsible for the jet’s destruction. Rebels blame Ukraine, Ukraine blames both rebels and Russia and Russia points the finger back at Ukraine’s military.

Vitaly Nayda, Ukraine’s director of informational security, said the person who shot down the flight was “absolutely” a Russian. “A Russian-trained, well-equipped, well-educated officer … pushed that button deliberately,” he said.

“We taped conversations” between a Russian officer and his office in Moscow, Nayda said. “We know for sure that several minutes before the missile was launched, there was a report” to a Russian officer that the plane was coming, he said.

Moscow has denied claims that it pulled the trigger. And Russian Army Lt. Gen. Andrei Kartapolov suggested a Ukrainian jet fighter may have shot the plane down.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko rejected that, saying all Ukrainian aircraft were on the ground at the time.

Pro-Russian rebels have repeatedly denied responsibility for the attack.