Royal Navy personnel from HMS Defender and HMS Glasgow participated in an official ceremony with Glasgow’s Lord Provost to transfer HMS Defender’s affiliation with the city of Glasgow to HMS Glasgow.
The event took place on Monday at the Glasgow City Chambers.
The commanding officer of HMS Defender, Commander Peter Evans, officially handed over the affiliation to Commander Philip Burgess, the commanding officer of HMS Glasgow. HMS Defender, a Type 45 destroyer, was built on the Clyde by BAE Systems and has been affiliated with the city since 2009.
I went to take a look at @HMSDefender, currently at the @PeelPorts owned King George V Dock in Glasgow, after the Type 45 Destroyer spent the weekend in the city. pic.twitter.com/d4dJkp1Td6
— George Allison (@geoallison) June 19, 2023
Commander Evans stated:
“HMS Defender has finally returned to her second home and affiliated city of Glasgow. A place that both I, and the ship’s Company are eager to visit and enjoy. Defender was, of course, built in Glasgow and we have a number of sailors who call this city home.
Defender has been busy since her last visit, and it is testament to the engineering prowess of the ship builders here in Glasgow that we have completed missions all over the world, from the equator to the arctic. We have a great reputation at home and with our allies, and it is in part due to the strong support we get from our affiliated city and organisations.
We are very shortly proceeding to upkeep for a well-deserved rest and deep maintenance. Now, with HMS Glasgow taking form, we will formally handover our affiliations to her.”
HMS Glasgow is the first of eight city-class Type 26 Frigates being constructed in Glasgow.
Commander Burgess said:
“It is with great pleasure that the affiliation previously held by HMS Defender now fully passes to the 9th Royal Navy Ship which bears the name of the city.”
Looking like she’ll be a fine ship 😀
Maybe I missed it in reading, but, where will Defenders next affiliation be?
Middlesbrough would be nice 🤗
I’ll second that. Remember having a tour of HMS Jupiter donkeys years ago when she visited.
Yes I do ,good old leander class Frigate 👍
Does it need to have one?
Hi Dern. I have no idea….assume all ships and subs, like RAF Sqns and Army regiments have affiliations, be it a geographic place or an organisation? Not an area I have any knowledge on so was curious.
I guess I can see the purpose, in a “Colonel of the Regiment” help save us from cuts kind of way. But yeah, same thing, just was wondering if it was a “Every ship must have an affiliation.”
Or are there cities lining up to adopt an orphaned ship?
Ha, like trying to get city status! No idea.
“Ew, look, Nottingham thinks it’s a city. It doesn’t even have a ship.”
“Oh quite”
*Edit* If we tied city status to having a ship, you bet the Royal Navy would grow quickly.
Could be tied to Preston… Heaven help it.
Or Doncaster…
It could fling white dog turds at the enemy as there is plenty of it knocking about in good old Donny. That or hypodermic needles.
I really took pity on HMS Walney. Seagull sho!te everywhere and Barrow Island as a neighbour. B-i-F not much better.
Now, Ulverston is a fantastic town.
I thought all RN ships had two city affiliations, isn’t her second affiliation Exeter?
No idea.
Wiki say’s Exeter is correct.
Uxbridge I think; wasn’t it in Boris Johnson’s departing prime ministers honour list?
🙄😆
Couldn’t resist it 🙂
Beautiful Destroyer Defender.I would like to see our patrol boats better armed they are bigger and more modern than Russian Corvette ships and probably more capable if armed than many foreign navys ships .
HMS Defender has displayed some World Class courage and has got some serious mojo going on with that run past the Crimean coast in the midst of Carrier Strike Group ’21. That it outran the smaller Russian patrol boats when they tried to engage at surface level was really something . . .
Saddleworth.
HMS Leeds. There’s only been one and that was an old US ship built in WW1 and transferred under Lend Lease in 1940. Odd that there’s been no other ship named after the third largest city in the UK.