Defender joins fight against piracy in the Indian Ocean

11/07/2014

The Navy’s fifth Type-45 destroyer HMS Defender is on station east of Suez as she knuckles down to fighting pirates on her first deployment.

The Portsmouth-based warship – the fifth of six £1bn warships built to shield the Royal Navy’s Fleet from air and missile attack – has taken her place with the international force determined to stamp out the scourge of modern-day piracy.

Defender, which left her home base at the beginning of last month, joined forces with South Korean destroyer ROKS Munmu the Great, as part of Combined Task Force 151.

The group is one of three international naval forces committed to security and ensuring free passage of two and a half million square miles of ocean from the Suez Canal to the Seychelles, and into the Gulf, tackling piracy, terrorism and smuggling, and working with allied nations and navies in the region.

Thanks to these concerted efforts, piracy has been limited to a handful of attacks in the Indian Ocean this year – and none of them successful. But if navies and merchant sailors let up their guard…

So in the Omani port of Salalah, Defender met up with the Republic of Korea warship before heading out into ‘pirate alley’ between the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, where warships patrol and merchant ships are guided down an invisible, protected highway.




Images by the UK Royal Navy

Royal Navy press release