HMS Pembroke Hunts for Mines off Kiel, Germany

Royal Navy’s Sandown-class minehunter HMS Pembroke located nine WW2 bombs and mines in the murky waters off Kiel, Germany.

The Faslane-based ship joined four other NATO vessels hunting for historic ordnance on the latest stage of her deployment with the international force.

Wars past continue to occupy warships present as an international force of minehunters – including HMS Pembroke – dealt with unexploded mines, bombs and torpedoes in the North and Baltic Seas.

Pembroke alone located nine pieces of unexploded ordnance just off the busy shipping lanes leading to Kiel – Germany’s principal naval base and her main Baltic port.

Pembroke’s specialist dive team then placed markers to allow the WW2-vintage ordnance – mines, bombs and torpedoes – to be safely disposed of at a later date.

The vessel has been attached to NATO’s Mine Counter Measures Group 1 since the beginning of the year, one of five assigned to the international force from Germany, Netherlands, Poland and Belgium, plus flagship German support vessel FGS Donau.

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Image: Royal Navy