HMS Dragon has made a stop in New York.
The Royal Navy say that the Type 45 destroyer is off the east coast of America, having broken away from HMS Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the Carrier Strike Group on Westlant 19.
According to a news release:
“During her time alongside the city that never sleeps, sailors were given time to go ashore and see some of its famous landmarks. They spent time on the observatory deck on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building and also made a fleeting stop to Wall Street.
The group travelled on the metro, where they chatted to officers from the New York Police Department, to see the Museum of Natural History before walking through Central Park. Later in the day, the HMS Dragon sailors had time to pay their respects to the thousands of people who died in the 9/11 attacks with a moment of reflection at the memorial site of the Twin Towers.”
While in the Atlantic, HMS Dragon also supported the US Navy by providing air defence to USS Dwight D Eisenhower.
Amazing run ashore, I was lucky to do it twice in 2004 and 2007 on HMS Invincible and Illustrious. Heart warming to see how professional today’s ratings are after watching the Queen Elizabeth documentary. Very professional, but with the same wicked sense of humour, and life at sea has changed little since I left in 2013, apart from the far superior living accommodation standards . We should be very proud of today’s youth, and dispel the myth they are all snow flakes and wet behind the ears. ??? The RN has a very bright future, with some outstanding equipment, and… Read more »
Very cool to see HMS Dragon berthed close to USS Intrepid on my commute into work with morning. I can just about see her from my office window. I missed HMS Queen Elizabeth when she visited NYC as she didn’t venture up too far on the Hudson. Strange world as I used to love watching the Royal Navy ships coming and going when I lived in Gosport and used to work at ASWE on Portsdown Hill in the 80’s.
Is she still berthed? I will pop over and take a look later
She was when I passed around 7:30AM EST this morning. I was a little surprised to see her assuming she had already departed.
More on the QE. Also the USMC F35 squadron that will deploy on her is identified.
https://news.usni.org/2019/11/21/royal-navy-intends-hms-queen-elizabeth-to-be-integrated-into-u-s-carrier-operations?
Cheers!
She must be one of the very few ships with nose art. That must catch the eye in itself beyond the basic beauty of these ship’s overall design.
I love Dragons nose art. I think defender could have an English knight in full armour painted on her so not just a Welsh affiliated ship. All talk of subtlety and visual ease of targeting is nonsense, if any enemy is that close to make out the painting then they are already close enough to attack.
Oooooooooooohhhhhhhh…….tut tut tut……we can’t have anything patriotic and English in case it offends somebody else.
Australian destroyer visits San Francisco 🙂
http://images.defence.gov.au/20191010usn0000000_001.jpg
It looks like this lot didn’t get themselves into trouble like some of the QE’s crew did. That made me laugh really, a couple of lads got a bit hammered and obviously forgot that the police in the US are a lot stricter than our ones at home.
Well done HMS Dragon!!