HMS Portland receives warm welcome in Canada
Royal Navy frigate HMS Portland received a warm welcome in Canada at the first International Fleet Week in Halifax.
The submarine hunter departed her North Atlantic stomping ground, having tracked Russian Navy vessels there alongside the RAF’s P8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, and headed for Nova Scotia.
Arriving in Halifax, sailors lined the upper deck in procedure alpha as HMS Portland took her position next to US Navy destroyers USS Porter and USS James E Williams.
The ship’s Engineering Warfare Officer, Warrant Officer First Class Paul Statham said: “I’ve never seen a welcome like it… the recognition from the Canadian Navy and people of Halifax was a highpoint in my 25 years in the navy.”
Once in Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia and a port on the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, HMS Portland’s commanding officer, Commander Ed Moss-Ward, presented a crest on behalf of the HMS Belfast Association to HMCS Sackville and the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust in recognition of the ships’ shared operational history.
The Royal Canadian Navy shares battle honours with HMS Belfast for action in the Arctic, North Cape and Normandy during the Second World War.
HMCS Sackville – a museum ship and only surviving Flower-class corvette – served with distinction as a convoy escort in the Battle of the Atlantic.
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