On Friday 6 December 2013, the French Navy ship FS Siroco joined the EU Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) Somalia Operation Atalanta. FS Siroco will be the flagship of the European Union’s counter piracy operation off the coast of Somalia for the next four months. Rear Admiral Hervé Bléjean is the Force Comma
Commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group ONE (SNMG1), Commodore Henning Amundsen handed over command of NATO’s counter-piracy Operation OCEAN SHIELD task force (CTF-508) at one minute past midnight December 7 to Rear-Admiral Eugenio Diaz Del Rio, Commander SNMG2. The two commanders and staffs met a
Sailors from the Royal Norwegian Navy have spent two days at HMS Raleigh learning to transfer fuel, stores and other essential supplies from ship to ship at sea. The group of six sailors were able to get some hands-on experience of the operations using the Royal Navy’s replenishment-at-sea training
U.S. Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stout and U.S. Naval Support Activity Souda Bay on Sunday as part of his annual USO Holiday Tour. Dempsey took a tour of the ship and spoke with sailors about the
Royal Navy amphibious helicopter carrier HMS Illustrious has nearly completed her mission in the Philippines. The 23,000-tonne carrier was deployed to the Philippines to assist with the relief effort in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan under the direction of the Department for International Developme
After stopping 20 armed pirate groups and seizing more than 50 pirates, RFA Fort Victoria has completed a marathon 40-month deployment by sailing home yesterday. For many of her 1,197 days away from the United Kingdom, support ship RFA Fort Victoria has acted as Britain’s leading warrior in the figh
After spending almost five months operating with the EU’s counter-piracy Operation Atalanta off Somalia, German frigate FGS Niedersachsen is heading home. During its time with Operation Atalanta, FGS Niedersachsen sailed a total of 26,000 nautical miles and conducted daily counter piracy patrols to
The Royal Navy’s flagship welcomed onboard a number of affiliated organisations during a brief port visit to Valetta, Malta. Now approaching the end of Cougar 13, the men and women of HMS Bulwark hosted a number of the ship’s longstanding affiliates, including 29 scouts from the St Aloysius College
Not a single ship was seized by pirates during the Royal Navy’s three-month spell in command of a task force patrolling the Indian Ocean for modern-day buccaneers. The ships of Combined Task Force 151 also succeeded in hunting down one pirate action group after the raiders’ two failed attempts to hi
Ukrainian frigate Hetman Sahaydachnyi, participating in the NATO Ocean Shield counter-piracy operation, completed its fourth patrolling in the Gulf of Aden and on December 4 the ship entered the Salalah port (Oman). On this occasion, some servicemen got awards for their decisive actions and professi
On Friday 6 December, Commodore Peter Lenselink (Royal Netherlands Navy) handed over the Force Command of EU Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) Somalia Operation Atalanta to Contre Amiral Hervé Bléjean (French Navy) during a Change of Command ceremony held on board HNLMS Johan de Witt in the Port of Djibouti.
Last week, two ships from Standing NATO Maritime Group TWO (SNMG2) passed through the Suez Canal en route to taking command of NATO’s counter-piracy Operation OCEAN SHIELD. SNMG2 flagship ESPS ALVARO DE BAZAN and Turkish frigate TCG GELIBOLU will soon join the Ukraine frigate UPS HETMAN SAGAIDACHNY
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) will join ships from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea navy Dec. 8-9 for a trilateral naval exercise in waters to the south of the Korean Peninsula. The naval exercise is aimed at improving teamwork and interoperability betwe
The first segment of a sunken German landing craft from the Second World War was brought to the surface of Veerse Meer and placed on a pontoon. Military personnel of 105 Hydraulic Engineering Company and the Defence Diving Group have been working for weeks to raise the wreck from a depth of 15 metre
