Gibraltar

Warships receive big welcome home

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Two Portsmouth-based frigates - HMS Iron Duke and HMS Richmond – have returned home today after more than six months at sea.

They sailed into the naval base shortly before 11am to meet crowds of friends and families eager to see their loved ones following two very busy deployments.

HMS Iron Duke returned on a high after several days on operations in Libya. For three consecutive nights she used her firepower to destroy a gun battery outside the besieged town of Misrata. She also used star shells to illuminate pro-Gaddafi positions for NATO aircraft to destroy rocket launchers, fuel dumps, ammo stores, artillery batteries and command and control centres.

HMS Richmond has been on a seven-month deployment that has seen the ship operating as far east as Brunei and as far south as the Seychelles, deep into the Indian Ocean.

She has undertaken counter-piracy missions off the Horn of Africa, escorted humanitarian aid from the UN’s World Food Programme into Somalia and led a major military exercise called Bersama Shield involving Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.