Royal Navy warship HMS Daring has sailed from Portsmouth today to join the UK’s campaign against Daesh.
The Type 45 destroyer and her 190-strong crew are preparing for their mission to use the ship’s sophisticated radar and missile systems to protect US aircraft carriers as they launch strikes in Iraq and Syria.
The nine-month deployment follows that of her sister ship HMS Defender, which carried out a similar role earlier this year.
The ship’s Commanding Officer, Commander Philip Dennis, said: “HMS Daring has been through intense training to be in a position to take on this deployment and I am proud of my ship’s company for all their hard work in getting to this state of readiness.
“We will be sailing in support of an important task and we take up the reins of this mission from a host of Royal Navy ships which have gone before us. We look forward to following on from their hard work and success.”
HMS Daring is an advanced air defence destroyer and will play an important role in escorting the UK’s new aircraft carriers, the two biggest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. The first of the carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is due to arrive in to Portsmouth in the spring and the investment in the Navy reflects a defence budget growing in real terms each year for the rest of the decade.
HMS Daring’s other task while away will be to protect the Royal Navy’s annual deployment to the Middle East. She will protect the flagship HMS Ocean, which will assume command of the maritime counter-Daesh effort in the Gulf later this year. As well as providing air defence to Ocean, Daring will mitigate the threat of waterborne attack, carrying Royal Navy and Royal Marine boarding parties to counter pirates, terrorists and smugglers.
You can now follow HMS Daring on Twitter @HMSDaring
