Royal Air Force aircraft and personnel played a central role in Exercise Bersama Lima 2025, the annual Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) exercise involving Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom, according to the Ministry of Defence.
The three-week deployment saw RAF Voyager and A400M crews operate across Southeast Asia as part of the UK’s contribution to the exercise under Operation Highmast.
The Voyager conducted air-to-air refuelling sorties with UK F-35Bs from Singapore, while the A400M trained alongside Royal Australian Air Force F-35As from Kuantan Airbase in Malaysia.
The RAF’s participation formed part of a wider British commitment to strengthen interoperability with FPDA partners and demonstrate sustained presence in the Indo-Pacific. The UK contribution also included 148 Battery Royal Artillery, Individual Augmentees, and personnel from the Carrier Strike Group, which operated near the Malaysian and Singaporean coastlines.
Lieutenant Commander Cooke, Deputy National Representative (UK), said in the press release: “Exercise Bersama Lima has been an excellent opportunity to integrate with our FPDA allies in the Indo-Pacific. The UK’s contribution this year, particularly the integration of the Carrier Strike Group under Operation Highmast, has set a new benchmark for our participation in the Bersama series.”
Flight Lieutenant Still, who served with the Combat Plans team, said: “Collaborating with our Malaysian, Singaporean, New Zealand, and Australian counterparts to coordinate over 38 aircraft and multiple support platforms across air, land, and sea has been a significant undertaking, but it has highlighted the exceptional level of interoperability we share.”
With 4 Squadrons of F35’s and Voyager aircraft having a base in the area.
Oh hang on, we just sold it for £30,000,000,000.
May I correct you?
We paid we just paid someone to take our asset away for £30,000,000,000. I think there was a spare bridge thrown into the deal as well: although it appears to be the wrong one?
Oh feel free, I enjoy a bit of “Correction”. 😁
Plenty of that on here from “experts” 🙂
Well we retain the basing rights (assuming it remains above sea-level), but then we could have just retained the territory and basing rights for free by the simple expedient of ignoring Mauritius’s demands. I’m not sure who Starmer and co think they work for.
Well, it ain’t for us, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s China. Starmer and Co. are doing their best for them it seems.
Joking apart this was all about working with the Bad Deal that was done way back in the 1950’s in a different era when Britain did still have the image of ruling the waves and nobody was going to argue with Britain unless they could deal with a capital ship turning up…..
The amount of money being paid to resolve this is loopy but sometimes as solution is more important than anything else.
Ironically, I’m not aware of any regular British military involvement at Diego Garcia apart from NP 1002.
A handful of personnel.
The British military rarely visit it.
There will possibly be more activity on the intelligence side, embedded in what was US Naval Security Group, who basically work for NSA.
And the GPS and Deep Space Surveillance Ground stations of the US we, I assume, have access to as part of UKUSA 5 Eyes.
HMG webpage justifying the spend and bigging up our own contribution to what is a 99.99% US facility and capability is hilarious, a bit like the Minister yesterday saying the UK was a big boy and played a key role in the Israel/Palestine issue, before being promptly shot down by the US Ambassador.
The usual grandstanding that they play up to, which fools nobody really except the masses.
Maybe the far left government can order some new aircraft some time?