'Poignant moment' as Royal Navy ship HMS Northumberland leaves Portsmouth for last time after 'superb career'
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The frigate is among several ships of her class to have been decommissioned in recent years
Glasses will be raised to toast the career of a retired Royal Navy frigate after she left Portsmouth for the final time.
HMS Northumberland was towed out of HMNB Portsmouth yesterday afternoon (September 9). After an announcement that she was being taken out of service in November 2024, the ship has since been cannibalised for parts and has deteriorated since her prime.
Commander George Blakeman served on the Duke-class frigate between 2009 and 2011 as the ship’s Deputy Weapon Engineer officer and Boarding Officer. He was part of the ship’s company while being deployed east of the Suez Canal on counter-piracy operations.
“To see the ship now depart Portsmouth on her final journey is a poignant moment,” he told The News. “It has mixed emotions. I’m sad to see her depart, but I’m very proud to have served on her with a wonderful ship’s company.
“The ship had a superb career in the Royal Navy and supporting British defence. We’ll be saying farewell to her today and it's the end of her journey. There will be all those who continue to serve, or have served, who were members of her ship’s company. They who will no doubt see the images of the ship departing.
“They’ll raise a small glass to toast her, and be very proud of the achievements of the ship and the ship’s company who served across the years.”
The Type 23 warship was towed past The Round Tower in Old Portsmouth at around 3.45pm. She was taken out of the Fountain Lake Jetty at HMNB Portsmouth by Protug87, Bountiful, and Independent.
Commissioned in 1994 after being built by Swan Hunter on the River Tyne in Wallsend, HMS Northumberland has had a long and successful career. Her first historic moment occurred that year after she rescued a fishing trawler near The Falkland Islands.
She was also deployed to the Caribbean in 1999 on anti-drug operations and disaster relief duties. Alongside the US Coast Guard, personnel seized two tonnes of cocaine with a street value of £135m. Deployments alongside submarine HMS Torbay in the Caribbean, Nato allies in the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean followed.
She was the first Royal Navy ship to participate in the European Union’s counter piracy mission, Operation Atalanta, which saw numerous counter piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden. The frigate escorted World Food Programme humanitarian shipping between Mombasa, Kenya, and Mogadishu, Somalia, while being seen on the Sky TV show Ross Kemp: In Search of Pirates.
In 2010, she conducted various patrols as part of the naval counter-piracy task force, TF 151, in the Gulf of Aden and eastern Somali coast. After an extensive refit and suite of upgrades, she returned to the Indian Ocean in 2012. Various other operations followed in the 2010s.
In late 2020, HMS Northumberland's towed sonar was hit by a Russian submarine. The incident was caught on camera and the frigate had to abort her mission. She would go on to spend 191 days at sea in 2022, with visits to USS Tennessee in the early 2020s.
Her career came to a sad end after she was deemed to be in too poor of a condition to continue. Speaking to the House of Commons in 2024, former defence secretary John Healey said the frigate had “structural damage” and was “uneconomical repair”.
The future of HMS Northumberland is yet to officially be confirmed. Defence specialist website Navy Lookout reported in August this year that the frigate will be scrapped in Turkey, the same fate as HMS Westminster and HMS Montrose.
The Royal Navy have been approached for comment.