Royal Navy’s flagship HMS Prince of Wales kicks off major deployment

The UK’s premier naval deployment of 2025 is underway as ships departed ports in England and Norway, led by the nation’s flagship, aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.

As disclosed, the vessel, including the UK’s Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless, began an eight-month mission to maintain security and freedom from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Between now and December, the Carrier Strike Group will conduct a series of exercises and operations with air, sea and land forces of a dozen allies in the Mediterranean, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Japan and Australia.

The mission, called Operation Highmast and commanded by Commodore James Blackmore and his staff, has three aims:

• to declare the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers with all their constituent parts fully operational;
• to reaffirm the UK’s commitment to NATO;
• and maintain international security and prosperity.

This is the second deployment of the UK’s Carrier Strike Group. The first, led by HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2021, took place during COVID-19 pandemic.

The task group will be joined in the Channel by two Norwegian vessels – tanker HNoMS Maud and frigate HNoMS Roald Amundsen – coming directly from Norway.

Frigate HMS Richmond and Canadian frigate HMCS Ville de Québec, sailed from Plymouth, and Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker RFA Tidespring will complete the strike group in its initial format.

In the next few days, the group will embark with a potent combination of up to 24 F-35B fifth-generation strike fighters and squadrons of attack, troop-carrying and anti-submarine helicopters, plus drones, the Royal Navy added.

The first workout for the strike group is an exercise off France testing aerial defenses before the force moves into the Mediterranean to work with an Italian-led carrier force, then heads east of Suez via the Red Sea.