The King and His Navy

The Royal Navy has been in King Charles’ blood since the day he was born in 1948.

The son and grandson of Royal Navy officers, Charles would, in time, follow them into the Senior Service for a relatively short but rewarding career, with the Navy also a near-constant presence throughout his life, be it family ties and connections to official duties.

After a spell with the RAF, learning to fly with the Universities Air Squadron programme while studying at Cambridge, the future king’s naval career began as a 22-year-old acting sub-lieutenant joining an ‘accelerated graduates’ course at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth on September 15 1971… and less than two months later he was assigned to destroyer HMS Norfolk for practical experience.

Though heir to the throne, he learned about the basics of life at sea like any other officer under training, maintaining a thorough log of all activities. Unfortunately, Norfolk’s programme was not especially exciting: a visit to Toulon followed by maintenance.

Over the next 12 months, instead the prince was given a whistle-stop induction to life in the Cold War Royal Navy, undergoing the submarine emergency escape drill at HMS Dolphin before joining hunter-killer HMS Churchill, studying navigation and comms at HMS Mercury and putting his knowledge to the test aboard minehunter HMS Glasserton.

Training complete, Prince Charles was assigned as gunnery officer aboard HMS Minerva on West Indies patrol, which included representing the Queen in the Bahamas when the islands declared their independence in July 1973.

The 11 months aboard Minerva were followed by a brief stint in her sister HMS Jupiter in the Pacific before returning to the UK in the spring to try his hand at naval aviation.

In 45 days he clocked up 105 hours in the cockpit of a Wessex Mk5 on 707 Naval Air Squadron, earning the ‘Double Diamond’ trophy as best pilot. He went on to serve on the front line with 845 NAS and HMS Hermes on exercises in Canada.

And continuing the ‘action man’ nature of his time in the RN, Prince Charles joined trainee Royal Marines on their endurance and Tarzan courses (accompanied by his security detail) before putting his naval career largely on hold in 1975 to perform royal duties.