A NATO group of ten multinational warships has arrived at the docks today for a five-day visit.

The ORP Mewa (Poland),  TCG Anamur (Turkey), HMS Pembroke (UK), HNOMS Rauma (Finland), Bad Benenson (Germany), HNLMS Willemstad and BNS Lobelia (Belgium), FGS Donau (Germany), ITS Euro (Italy), and FGS Auerbach (Germany) are part of Standing NATO Mine Counter Measures Groups 1 and 2 (SNMCMG1 and SNMCMG2).

Flagship of Group 1 is the German tender Donau with the Italian frigate Euro acting as flagship for Group 2. The ships will berth on the Queen’s Wharf for the duration of their stay.

Falmouth Packet:

The ship’s company of HMS Pembroke part of Group 1, recently paid tribute to the crew of HMS Isis, a Royal Navy destroyer that was sunk during the Second World War.

On March 26, the Sandown class mine counter measures vessel visited the wreck in French waters just north of the Normandy coast, where she conducted a short service of remembrance and a wreath laying ceremony.

Pembroke divers descended on the wreck of the I class destroyer which had sunk in only 21 metres of water.

The Faslane-based ship joined four other NATO vessels hunting for historic ordnance off Kiel on the latest stage of her deployment with the international force.

Falmouth Packet:

Wars past continue to occupy warships present as an international force of minehunters – including HMS Pembroke – dealt with unexploded mines, bombs and torpedoes in the North and Baltic Seas.

Pembroke alone located nine pieces of unexploded ordnance just off the busy shipping lanes leading to Kiel – Germany’s principal naval base and her main Baltic port.

Pembroke’s specialist dive team then placed markers to allow the WWII-vintage ordnance – mines, bombs and torpedoes – to be safely disposed of at a later date.