The first deployment by a Royal Navy warship in 2012 begins today as minehunter HMS Ledbury sails from Portsmouth.
The small Hunt-class ship is due to take her place alongside similar allied vessels in a NATO mine warfare force in the Mediterranean.
Over the coming six months, the force – Standing Mine Countermeasures Group 2 – will sail the length and breadth of the Middle Sea practising the art of hunting mines and other underwater explosive devices.
It is practice which paid off in full in 2011. The last time a Portsmouth-based minehunter – HMS Brocklesby – served with the NATO force she found herself ‘in the thick of it’, clearing mines for real off Libya to keep the sea lanes to Misrata open (and, lest we forget, HMS Bangor replaced her later in the conflict and performed similarly sterling work).
With the Libyan mission now over, the group will resume its more usual mission – a mixture of exercising, goodwill visits in a multitude of ports on the Mediterranean shore including stops in Italy, Spain, Greece and Morocco, and the hunt for historic ordnance left by wars past.
To prepare for her role with the NATO force, Ledbury spent much of 2011 in training. The 31-year-old ship came out of a maintenance period in March then went through the rigours of Operational Sea Training – which prepared the 40-plus ship’s company for deployment.
More recently, the ship joined British and international warships for a two-week war game in north-west Scotland, Exercise Joint Warrior, and found time to reaffirm bonds built up over the past three decades with her namesake town in Herefordshire.
Ledbury is due to sail past Round Tower around 3.30pm today. She’ll be followed out of Portsmouth later this week by HMS Daring, making the maiden deployment by any Type 45 destroyer, which sails east of Suez.
In addition to the ships deployed, there are around 3,000 Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary sailors, Fleet Air Arm personnel and Royal Marines already on duty – as they have been throughout the festive season – protecting our nation’s interests across the globe.
[mappress] Naval Today Staff , January 10, 2012; Image: royalnavy