Royal Navy's most senior engineering admiral tells sailors to 'set their sights high'
THE Royal Navy’s most senior engineer has urged Britain’s sailors to set their sights ‘high’ during a visit to one of the Senior Service’s main training hubs.
Rear Admiral Jim Higham, director ships support and chief naval engineer officer, was the guest of honour at HMS Sultan’s ceremonial divisions event in Gosport.
The senior officer was visiting the men and women based at Sultan – the navy’s prime engineering training establishment – to celebrate their achievements.
Visiting Sultan, the admiral underlined the importance of the work the huge military base does to provide the Senior Service with highly-skilled air and marine engineers, without whom nothing would fly or sail.
In his first visit since Joining Defence Equipment & Support, the admiral – who was escorted by Captain Jo Deakin, Sultan’s commanding officer throughout – inspected members of the guard of honour before presenting several medals.
In addressing the divisions, Read Adm Higham said: ‘Be proud of what you can offer our navy and its people… set your sights high….set your sights on the fleet, a fleet that engineers and only engineers can sustain.’
Long service and good conduct medals were presented to Sub Lieutenant S Payne and ET(ME) Lloyd.
HMS Sultan is home to the defence college of technical training’s defence school of marine engineering and the royal naval air engineering and survival equipment school where engineers and technicians are equipped with the skills to function as the ‘beating heart of operational capability’, maintaining, repairing, sustaining and operating our aircraft, ships, submarines and vehicles daily on operations across the globe.