OTTAWA — Senior military officials opposed the Conservative government's controversial ban on media coverage of homecoming ceremonies for soldiers killed in Afghanistan, documents obtained under the Access to Information Act suggest.

A Department of National Defence official snapped photographs outside a repatriation ceremony in April to illustrate how the government's policy was causing security concerns.

The department gathered pictures of journalists standing by the highway outside the Trenton, Ont., military base during the April 25 repatriation of four fallen soldiers.

About 20 photographs were shown to Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier, according to the documents.

"This may cause safety issues and generate even more frustration, particularly in winter," Lt.-Col. Richard Lavoie, a departmental public-affairs director, wrote in an e-mail in which he forwarded the photos to several colleagues.

Military officials found other ways to express their displeasure: they cleared equipment from the airport tarmac so the news media outside the base could have an unobstructed view of the ceremony.

The moves came on the heels of a controversial decision from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government to keep the repatriation ceremonies a private affair.

The Tories initially declared their new policy a permanent one, but have somewhat softened their stand amid criticism from fallen soldiers' grieving relatives.

The Access to Information documents suggest discontent with the ill-fated policy was not limited to military families.

The e-mail exchanges between departmental officials were accompanied by photographs of police cruisers blocking a highway lane outside the base. That security blanket allowed journalists standing by the highway to capture distant images of the incoming flight and solemn ceremony.

A DND spokesman declined to comment on the repatriation imbroglio, saying the department often collects pictures of public events for archiving and training purposes.

But reporters who attended the event did not require public documents as evidence that military officials were peeved at the government order.

One journalist said the military made it obvious by their words and actions that day.

Soldiers moved trucks, cranes and other equipment so news cameras could get clear shots from outside the fence surrounding the base.

"The military men wanted us there," said one journalist assigned to cover the event.

"They were (greeting us) like, 'We're glad you came.' "

Ontario Provincial Police blocked off part of Highway 2 to protect photographers, camera operators and reporters from traffic, and a DND snapshot shows police officers huddling with a CTV crew, heads bowed and arms crossed, as they watched the ceremony on a video monitor.

The Harper government informed the military of the controversial new policy on April 24 - the eve of the repatriation ceremony for Matthew Dinning, Myles Mansell, Randy Payne and William Turner.

The four died in a roadside bomb explosion in the worst one-day combat loss of Canadian troops since the Korean war.

The Harper government said the new guidelines were permanent. The policy was similar to one adopted by the Bush administration in Washington at the beginning of the Iraq war to keep the American public from seeing news images of returning caskets.

DND officials received an e-mail from Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's office saying the new directive was being issued out of respect for grieving families.

That line of reasoning was instantly undermined when the victims' families lambasted the government decision.

At his daughter's funeral in May, Dr. Tim Goddard gave a stirring eulogy saying the young woman died to protect Canada's freedoms, not to restrict them. Nichola Goddard was the first Canadian female fighting soldier to die in combat.

At Cpl. Matthew Dinning's funeral, his father Lincoln Dinning mentioned Harper by name and criticized the government's closed repatriation ceremonies.