NAVY NEWS, NOVEMBER 2010


7


Picture: PO(Phot) Terry Seward


THIS is what a .5 calibre M3M gun mounted on a Lynx can do in the hands of a Royal Marines


Commando. Burning fiercely off the Somali coast is a skiff crammed with fuel drums, ladders and other piratical paraphernalia as HMS Montrose thwarts her second attack by modern-day brigands in a week. In this


second ‘police action’, the


Devonport-based frigate was dispatched by NATO chiefs to investigate a suspected ‘action group’ leaving a known pirate camp on the Somali coast. Montrose launched her Lynx, Vixen, which found ten men and three small craft – a whaler (mother ship) towing two smaller skiffs. From overhead, boarding ladders and other equipment typically used in pirate attacks were clearly visible to Vixen’s crew, who promptly tried to corral the suspects before Montrose arrived on the scene.


‘Exactly the result we’re after...’


Four men fled for shore in one skiff; the remaining six surrendered under the guns of the Lynx. When the frigate appeared, her boarding


party of commandos and sailors gathered evidence and information from the six suspects, then put them in the remaining skiff and sent them on their way. With their mother ship aflame and


acrid black smoke rolling across the sea, the pirates headed back to shore. “This could quickly have turned into another piracy incident, but our ability to respond quickly in the Lynx meant that we could stop the pirates before they had a chance to do any harm. It’s exactly the result we’re after,” said Montrose’s 815 NAS Flight Commander Lt Stuart Irwin. Just days before, Vixen was on the scene


just in time to prevent a North Korean vessel being hijacked. The MV Mi Rae was passing through the international transit corridor in the Gulf of Aden – the invisible sea lane


protected by warships – when a gang of men in a skiff closed in on the vessel. The Koreans fl ashed an SOS, picked up by Montrose which was relatively close and immediately launched her Lynx. When the helicopter arrived at the Mi


Rae’s position – just 20 minutes after receiving the SOS – its crew found the skiff moving away and the crew tossing items overboard,


including a rocket


propelled grenade launcher, before they came to a halt.


Montrose has only recently arrived


in theatre, where she’s one of fi ve ships attached to NATO’s Danish-led Standing Maritime Group 1 which is the latest force dispatched by the international military body to deal with piracy and security east of Suez under the banner of Operation Ocean Shield.


With the monsoon season over, and with the Gulf of Aden fairly heavily patrolled


by those leading the anti-piracy effort have international warships,


switched their focus southwards with the aim of interrupting the modern-day buccaneers.


Much of Montrose’s time on NATO duties so far has been spent working not far from the Somali capital Mogadishu (you might remember it from Black Hawk Down).


The frigate has been sending her helicopter Vixen up at dawn and dusk especially with a view to detecting whalers and skiffs leaving the ‘pirate camps’ along Somalia’s east coast.


The Mk8 Lynx has also been conducting surveillance work, gathering information on stockpiles of fuel and boarding equipment, such as ladders, as well as the pirates’ movements; tactics which have evidently proved successful. For two nights of the Ocean Shield


patrol, the ship’s complement was ‘plus one’ – without permission. Ordinarily we don’t encourage stowaways in the hangar of a Type 23…


but in this case we’ll make an exception. A scops owl made the stern of the


frigate his home as Montrose prowled the Somali Basin. Now you can never have too much owl-


related tomfoolery in the Navy, we say. Last year we had a barn owl making its home (temporarily) aboard HMS Severn and in the dim and distant past we seem to recall one enjoying life on Ark Royal. But how do we know it’s a scops owl?


Well, luckily Montrose has a resident twitcher: PO(Logs) Ray Duffy is a member of the RN Birdwatching Society and has been feeding back sightings while on board to colleagues in the UK. And there have been quite a few sightings… yellow wagtails, warblers, hoopoes and swallows have all touched down on the T23. The reason why? They’re migrating south for the winter and use the warship for a brief rest before continuing their journeys south.


“SSAFA made life a great deal easier for us both.”


Wally, 90, was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery in a dramatic battle outside Brussels on September 3rd 1944. Later, the D-Day Veteran, who had served in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, had a platoon within the Army Training Regiment named after him. Wally is now the main carer for his wife Dolly, and when the couple needed a break he contacted SSAFA Forces Help.


WWW.SSAFA.ORG.UK 020 7403 8783


Registered Charity No. 210760 Est. 1885, Registered Charity (Scotland) No. SC038056


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