https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/1 ... ent-since/
Queen welcomes home Royal Navy flagship after longest deployment since WW2
Return of HMS Elizabeth, after 500,000 nautical mile journey, hailed as 'the very best of Global Britain' by Chief of the Defence Staff
By Dominic Nicholls, Defence and Security Editor 9 December 2021 • 6:00pm
The Queen has welcomed home the Royal Navy flagship as it returns from the biggest deployment since the Second World War.
Marking the end of the seven-month mission to the Pacific and back, the Queen has remarked on the Royal Navy’s “important work … undertaken to build relationships” in an open letter to all the British and American service personnel involved.
HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s newest operational aircraft carrier, plus ships from the US and Netherlands, formed the core of the Carrier Strike Group deployment, which has visited over 30 countries since leaving Portsmouth in May.
The letter from the Queen says: “On the return of HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH to her base port of Portsmouth, I send my best wishes to the 1200 Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Air Force, and United States Navy and Marine Corps personnel onboard the ship.
“I was pleased to hear of the important work you have undertaken to build relationships between the United Kingdom and more than twenty nations during your seven-month long deployment.
“I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the wider Carrier Strike Group and hope you all have a most enjoyable and restful Christmas with your families.”
HMS Queen Elizabeth’s crew were welcomed back to their home base of Portsmouth on Thursday afternoon after sailing 49,000 nautical miles to the Indo-Pacific and back.
The 65,000 tonne aircraft carrier was joined by air-defence destroyers HMS Defender and HMS Diamond, as HMS Richmond, an anti-submarine warfare frigate, arrived in Plymouth.
The Type-23 frigate HMS Kent will return to Portsmouth tomorrow. The Royal Navy’s frigates and vessels from the US and Netherlands navies departed in recent days.
On Wednesday, the helicopters and F-35 jets of 820 Naval Air Squadron and 617 Squadron departed the aircraft carrier for the final time, returning to their respective units of RNAS Culdrose, Cornwall, and RAF Marham, Norfolk.
The service personnel from nine ships, a submarine, five air squadrons and a company of Royal Marines will arrive home in time for Christmas.
Families and friends gathered in Portsmouth to meet their loved ones.
For 25 crew members it was the first time they had met their babies, who were born while they were away.
Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said: “Today we pay tribute to the 3,700 personnel in the Carrier Strike Group that have been our global ambassadors on this historic and ground-breaking deployment.
“The personnel and their families have made considerable sacrifices to make this deployment the success it has been. We thank them for all their efforts in strengthening our relationships with our allies and partners around the world.”
Over the course of the deployment, the embarked aircraft of F-35 jets and helicopters clocked up 4,723 flying hours.
The Air Wing consisted of British F-35 jets from 617 (The Dambusters) Squadron based at RAF Marham, Wildcat helicopters from RNAS Yeovilton and Merlin helicopters from RNAS Culdrose. There were also 10 US Marine Corps F-35 jets embarked on the carrier.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, said: “Throughout the past seven months, HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Strike Group have been furthering the UK’s interests and strengthening our partnerships around the globe.
“With involvement from across the Armed Forces, and our allies integrated throughout, this deployment has been a truly joint, truly international endeavour, which represents the very best of Global Britain.”
The Carrier Strike Group sailed across three oceans and five seas, cumulatively covering around 500,000 nautical miles.
In June, a diplomatic row flared up between London and Moscow when HMS Defender transited within 12 miles of the Crimean shoreline.
Russia, riled by the presence of Nato navies in the Black Sea, said it had been a “provocation” for the British warship to sail in what it sees as its territorial waters.
Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 in a move that has not been recognised internationally.
In September, China accused Britain of “evil intentions” after HMS Richmond sailed through the Taiwan Strait in what the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said was a “freedom of navigation” operation.
The 110-mile wide strategic passageway between China and Taiwan is considered internationally to be high seas and is not subject to sovereign claims or jurisdiction.
However, Beijing, which claims the island of 24 million as its own territory, regularly condemns United States warships for making “provocative” transits.
Speaking at the time, Adm Radakin said the Taiwan Strait was clearly “part of the free and open Indo-Pacific,” adding that “it is a waterway that can be used by different nations”.
One F-35 jet was lost in the Mediterranean Sea after a catastrophic fault developed on takeoff from HMS Queen Elizabeth. The pilot safely ejected.
The wreckage was recovered this week, broken in “significant large parts,” the MoD said, after a multinational operation involving the US and Italian navies and commercial salvage vessels.
In the 1960s and early 1970s it became policy that no foreign deployments would be longer than one year (ish). Before that deployments were even longer. Now if my history memory is correct that was after WW2
, so who exactly wrote this bollox? I was personally away in the Far East for a year (1966/7) then another 9 months in 1973/4 - cut short and flown home because a vacancy had come up in my next requested squadron and I had already served two years in that ship.'Biggest' deployment - I suppose they mean in numbers of escorts for her - pathetic by the number of escorts for Eagle, Ark, Victorious and co back then. Biggest in sausages eaten maybe.
Don't think I'm not pleased to see some semblance of a real Navy emerging at last, just at the sort of crap that today's children who write this sort of stuff produce.
