Proud dad Richie watches his son pass out – from UK flagship off Japan

The parade and ceremony on a Friday afternoon at the Torpoint establishment is a lifetime milestone – both for the trainees and their families – marking the end of the ten-week transition from civilian to sailor.

Richie Welsh was bristling with pride watching his son Alex follow in his footsteps to become the fourth generation of the family to join the Royal Navy as an engineer rating.

He did so at night. Seven thousand miles away. At sea. In the captain’s cabin of HMS Prince of Wales, somewhere in the Sea of Japan.

Commander Welsh is head of air engineering aboard the flagship aircraft carrier, responsible for overseeing the engineering/maintenance support for F-35 stealth fighters, through Merlin and Wildcat helicopters down to small Malloy and Puma drones.

The passing out parade at Raleigh is streamed over the internet for those unable to make it to Torpoint to watch in person – and thanks to the latest tech can be received on a warship mid-ocean.

Alex, from Devon, is the first Welsh to join the weapons engineering branch (responsible for maintaining for a warship’s weapons/sensor systems) and it’s the first time generations have overlapped in service.

His great grandfather Percy spent 22 years as a chief stoker, including throughout WW2, while grandad Mick joined up in the 1960s and served into the 1980s as an air engineering artificer, seeing front-line action in the Falklands and HMS Hermes.  Dad passed out of Raleigh in 1995 before being commissioned as a junior air engineer officer three years later. In addition to his current posting, he  served in Afghanistan on Operation Herrick.

Before his son passed through the gates of HMS Raleigh, he spent time at sea aboard HMS Prince of Wales and joined the carrier’s weapons engineers who showed him how they maintain the Phalanx automated Gatling gun.

He was so struck by the experience that he went straight to the careers office afterwards and signed up. Nine months later he’s about to begin his specialist training in Fareham.

“I am incredibly proud of the career Alex has chosen to pursue. He had been thinking about it for a while, but I sense his experience during our sailing from Liverpool to Portsmouth in HMS Prince of Wales last year sealed the deal in his mind,” said his dad.

“He joins HMS Collingwood next, and I am very much looking forward to seeing him in uniform for the first time in person when we arrive back in Portsmouth for our homecoming in December.”

HMS Prince of Wales is leading the Operation Highmast deployment by the UK’s Carrier Strike Group, with the current phase of the mission focused on working with allies and partners in the Far East and Southeast Asia.