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2 NAVY NEWS, DECEMBER 2010


● HMS Northumberland’s RM boarding party practise rapid roping drills with the frigate’s Merlin


With a boom


MONSOON season is over.


● HMS Montrose and her two RIBs make speed towards a pirate action group, watched by the frigate’s Lynx, Vixen and (above) an explosive end for a pirates’ mother ship under the guns of RFA Fort Victoria’s Royal Marines


Piracy season is upon us. And with it, too, anti-piracy season. More favourable weather has seen a surge in brigands leaving Somali shores in search of prey. In


doing so, they have


provided rich pickings for the concerted Royal Navy/Royal Marines/Fleet Air Arm and Royal Fleet Auxiliary effort to stamp out such freebooting. Five ‘pirate action groups’


have either been eliminated or their attacks thwarted in the past month or so – in some cases with spectacularly fiery results.


The latter came courtesy of Operation Capri – a combined ship-helicopter-commando sucker punch delivered by RFA Fort Victoria.


group’ – a whaler towing a skiff – while on a recce off the Somali coast.


As the helicopter fl ew over,


its crew noticed that the whaler was stocked up with fuel barrels, while four of the nine men aboard sought to hide from the eyes in the sky...


...Which, of course, looked


rather dodgy and prompted a full-scale boarding response by commandos aboard Fort Victoria, who were dispatched by sea boat.


Protection Group RM found a ramshackle boat crammed (a) with pirates and (b) boarding ladders; the crew admitted they had tossed their weapons overboard as the marines bore down on them. Under interrogation, the brigands claimed to have been at sea for 45 days. The whaler’s engines had failed, food had run out and they had resorted to using a boarding ladder as a mast for a makeshift sail. The Royals confi scated all


When the one-stop support ship came across a suspicious whaler off the Somali coast, she sent her Royal Marines boarding team to investigate. The commandos from Fleet


remaining pirate kit on the boat before blasting the decrepit whaler to kingdom come. The pirates escaped more lightly, being dropped ashore on the Somali coast.


“In many ways the pirates


were lucky that we found them – they would not have survived indefi n


Dorey RFA, Fort Victoria’s Commanding Offi cer.


Their boat is not the only one condemned to Davy Jones’ Locker by Fort Vic. The ship’s 820 NAS Merlin spied a suspected ‘pirate action


itely,” said Capt Rob


The pirates tried to make for the Somali shoreline but couldn’t outrun either the RIBs or the Merlin and eventually gave up the unequal struggle. Upon boarding the Royals found the whaler packed with piratical paraphernalia: six AK47s, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, two hand- held GPS units, three boarding ladders and four mobile phones.


All nine men were transferred to the skiff, whose engine was permanently disabled by the green berets. Being good eggs, the Royals gave the pirates oars and told them to paddle for shore...


…And then they set about blowing up the whaler with all its weaponry and kit.


“One cannot help but get a sense of satisfaction at the sight of a bunch of chastened suspected pirates being landed ashore, tails between their legs and the tools of their trade disappearing with a boom and a fl ash of fl ame,” said a lyrical Col Mark Gray RM, in charge of the commando anti-piracy task force aboard Fort Victoria. “Contrary to the Hollywood legend, there is nothing romantic about pirates and piracy. It is a blight which has struck the shores of Somalia and strikes at the very heart of the UK’s national interests.


“Countering piracy is one of the Royal Navy’s key roles even in this day and age.”


the guns of HMS Montrose this month, but then you don’t necessarily need to fi re your


No such fi er y results from


weapons to have an impact. Sometimes presence is everything. Presence of the Type 23... or her Lynx ‘Vixen’. Both have been harassing the pirates by night and day, making it clear the ship was ready to pounce on any attack skiffs that were launched.


Some mother ships returned to anchor off their pirate camps when they spied Montrose or her helicopter. As did a group of brigands who stormed the German merchantman MV Beluga Fortune making her way to South Africa. The crew retreated to a ‘citadel’ – a safe room where the pirates would not be able to get at them and take them hostage. It also allowed them to fl ash that distress signal – picked up by Montrose nearby.


With the outline of a Type 23 appearing on the Indian Ocean, the pirates fl ed, but not before setting fi re to part of the Beluga Fortune’s superstructure. “It would appear that the pirates simply gave up and left the ship,” said Montrose’s CO Cdr Jonathan Lett.


Once close enough, Montrose sent her boarding party on to the Beluga Fortune. The commandos found the merchant ship ransacked and its crew unnerved by the attack. They continued their journey south – sending regular updates on their progress to Montrose.


They also evidently sent some


reports to Berlin... for a message of thanks reached the frigate from German Foreign Minister Dr Guido Westerwelle via his British counterpart William Hague:


It was a great joy and relief to hear news of the successful operation off


the Horn of Africa. The valiant work of the British Navy played a decisive role in freeing the German cargo ship Beluga


Fortune from


the clutches of Somali pirates. The swift rescue is a fine example of international co-operation in combating piracy.


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