Page 96 - Light Dragoons 2023 CREST

Ahigh-tempo year on the high seas, HMS NORTHUMBERLAND has spent eight months of 2022 deployed on operations, having steamed more than 40,000nm and venturing as far south as the Strait of Gibraltar and as far North as the Arctic Circle.
An anti-submarine frigate by design with a Ship’s Company of around 190, NORTHUMBERLAND celebrated her 30th birthday this year, but she remains at the sharp end of Royal Navy opera- tions, currently employed in the Chief of Joint Operations’ EA2 (Euro-Atlantic and Arctic) joint operations area.
The Ship sailed from her homeport of Devonport in early January with a Merlin helicopter embarked for the first of two four-month deployments this year. Initially tasked as part of a NATO response to a sig- nificant deployment of Russian warships into the North Sea and North Atlantic, it would later transpire that many of those warships were en-route to the Black Sea in order to support the invasion of Ukraine. NORTHUMBERLAND shadowed those units out of UK waters and, with French and US warships, continued that shadow south into the Mediterranean Sea.
In early March, following the Russian invasion, NORTHUMBERLAND was tasked at short notice to proceed at high speed into the Baltic Sea to conduct an escort of a Strategic RORO – ferrying an additional armoured infantry company to reinforce NATO’s eFP (enhanced forward presence) troops in Estonia – in company with the Danish frigate HDMS NIELS JUEL.
Following that short period in the Baltic Sea, the Ship participated in the largest
HMS NORTHUMBERLAND conducts a 96 Gun Salute to mark the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II
The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
HMS NORTHUMBERLAND
NATO exercise in Europe for more than a decade, Ex COLD RESPONSE 22. This combined land, sea and air exercise takes place every other year in Norway and simulates defence of the country against a foreign invasion. This year it totalled more than 27,000 personnel and was the largest exercise conducted in the country since the Cold War.
NORTHUMBERLAND acted as the Anti-Submarine Warfare Commander for the exercise. This included protect- ing the aircraft carrier HMS PRINCE OF WALES in the Norwegian Sea and adja- cent fjords both from friendly submarines acting as “red forces” and as a deterrent from real-world Russian warships, aircraft and submarines deployed to monitor and disrupt the exercise. Following the exer- cise the Ship’s Company enjoyed a visit
to the small Norwegian port of Narvik, a town with its own significant naval history.
This period in the Norwegian Sea also resulted in the award of the ’Blue Nose’ cer- tificate to all of NORTHUMBERLAND’s Ship’s Company; a naval tradition whereby sailors who have crossed into the Arctic Circle receive a certificate signed by King Neptune, Ruler of the Raging Main, which acts as their passport to the region. The Ship is then entitled to paint the foremost fair- lead (through which the Ship’s head-rope is passed to secure the bow when berthing) blue as opposed to the usual battleship- grey – giving NORTHUMBERLAND her own ‘blue nose’ too.
Following Ex COLD RESPONSE, the Ship was assigned to the Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1) – a group
HMS NORTHUMBERLAND (rear row, right hand ship) takes part in Ex COLD RESPONSE, the largest NATO exercise in 2022
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