Royal Navy survey ship HMS Enterprise returns from year-long NATO deployment

Royal Navy survey ship HMS Enterprise returned to her Devonport homeport in Plymouth on July 22, after spending over a year in the Mediterranean as flagship of NATO’s Standing Mine Countermeasures Group 2.

Enterprise handed over command of the SNMCMG2 to the German Navy.

Working primarily in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, they were responsible for providing a high readiness MCM capability.

For 365 days HMS Enterprise flew the flag for NATO through the Mediterranean and Black Seas, training with the region’s navies – not just in the art of hunting mines, but disaster relief and search and rescue missions – and honing the ability of participating NATO forces to work seamlessly together.

With a NATO battle staff embarked, HMS Enterprise directed six major exercises, visited 40 ports, helped locate four WW2-era mines, worked with scientists to further the use of unmanned technology in finding objects underwater, and worked with around a dozen NATO and foreign navies.

“This has been a thoroughly enjoyable and professionally rewarding deployment. We have spent a year and a day assigned to NATO,” said Commander Phil Harper, Commanding Officer HMS Enterprise.

“We’ve visited every European country with a Mediterranean or Black Sea coast and exercised with nearly every NATO nation. Some of the crew even made it to Batumi in Georgia in support of NATO.