UKHMS Ocean welcomed home after world wide deployment

Crowds of fam­i­lies and friends cheered home the crew of HMS Ocean this week­end when she arrived back at Devon­port, Ply­mouth, after a suc­cess­ful five-month deploy­ment.

HMS Ocean arrives back in Devonport after a successful five-month deployment
HMS Ocean arrives back in Devon­port after a suc­cess­ful five-month deploy­ment
Source: LA(Phot) Nico­la Wil­son, Min­istry of Defence, UK
Click to enlarge

The jet­ty was packed with ban­ner-wav­ing fam­i­lies enter­tained by Her Majesty’s Roy­al Marine Band of Ply­mouth as the ship arrived. 

First off the ship was Cap­tain Kei­th Blount, the ship’s com­mand­ing offi­cer, who was greet­ed by his fam­i­ly before prais­ing the fam­i­lies and his crew: 

“It is fab­u­lous to be back. Won­der­ful to be home back in Ply­mouth after a great five-months away,” he said. “Now is the time for relax­ation for my ship’s com­pa­ny as they go off on well-deserved leave to spend time with their fam­i­lies and loved ones. The crew have been fan­tas­tic and have been very professional. 

“The deploy­ment has been full of vari­ety and the sailors have respond­ed very well to all of the duties placed on them. HMS Ocean has shown what the Navy is trained for in a tremen­dous­ly high pro­file suc­cess­ful deploy­ment. The ship had to be re-con­fig­ured for each of the dif­fer­ent task­ings, includ­ing counter-drugs patrol, human­i­tar­i­an aid, defence diplo­ma­cy, joint exer­cis­es with coun­tries we have not vis­it­ed before. 

“In fact HMS Ocean has packed in the full range of tasks a Roy­al Navy ship would per­haps be asked to do in a year — in only five months. I could not ask any more of my people. 

“The key to their and our suc­cess is the sup­port of the fam­i­lies back home and they deserve all our thanks.” 

Chief Pet­ty Offi­cer Mar­tin Dowse, of Cam­borne Corn­wall, runs the air­craft hangar on board. He was greet­ed by his over­joyed fam­i­ly on the jet­ty — wife Sarah, and chil­dren Imo­gen, five, and Noah, eight months. He hugged his son and said: 

“It is great to be back home again and see my fam­i­ly. The last time I saw Noah when he was less than half his age now and I last saw pho­tos of him four months ago. He has grown a lot since then. 

“The deploy­ment was very busy and full of vari­ety. The defence review announce­ment hap­pened while we were away and made us all a lit­tle wor­ried, but we will just have to wait and see what happens.” 

His wife said: 

“The future is uncer­tain about the ship, but now we will be spend­ing pre­cious time togeth­er as a fam­i­ly. It was hec­tic Mar­tin being away with such a young fam­i­ly. Imo­gen has been count­ing down until daddy’s arrival from 67 ’sleeps’ ago. She wants to go to the beach with her dad­dy and to have a barbecue.” 

Isha Jame­son, a cadet logis­tics offi­cer on board HMS Ocean, was wel­comed by her sis­ter Jila and broth­er Dan and cheer­ing moth­er Liz, wav­ing a flag of Toba­go from their coun­try of ori­gin. Jila said: 

“It is great to have Isha back home again. She joined the ship in Brazil and had a good time though it was hard work, but she loves being at sea.” 

Aman­da Christie, of Barn­sta­ple, wel­comed her hus­band Pet­ty Offi­cer Matthew Christie home with their young daugh­ter Lana who is five months old, and son Alex, aged six. Aman­da said: 

“Luck­i­ly Matthew had pater­ni­ty leave at the begin­ning of the deploy­ment for Lana’s birth and then joined the ship for most of the deploy­ment. It is fan­tas­tic to have him home. He has found it espe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult with Lana so young, but she makes it a spe­cial home­com­ing for us all.” 

The voy­age cov­ered 16,000-miles (25,750km) and four con­ti­nents dur­ing which the ship has con­duct­ed five amphibi­ous exer­cis­es with troops from five dif­fer­ent nations, two mar­itime secu­ri­ty patrols, pro­vid­ed train­ing for 300 marines and sailors from nine countries. 

On defence diplo­ma­cy duties the ship host­ed six inter­na­tion­al sem­i­nars for senior offi­cials, ran defence sales events for UK Trade and Invest­ment, and host­ed roy­al­ty, two pres­i­dents and numer­ous senior min­is­ters and mil­i­tary. Mean­while, away from the high pro­file events, Roy­al Naval sailors con­duct­ed four out-reach projects, which improved the lives of hun­dreds of chil­dren in three countries. 

Ocean returns for the ship’s com­pa­ny to spend some well earned time with their fam­i­lies and loved ones and to con­duct a main­te­nance peri­od along­side in Devon­port Naval Base and the ship will remain at short notice for oper­a­tions any­where in the world throughout. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →