Do You Feel Exposed ? – You Should

Yesterday, Friday December 3rd 2010, HMS Ark Royal slipped through the mists of The Solent and into history as she headed into Portsmouth to be decommissioned three years early due to swingeing government cuts. Decommissioned is a euphemism for “scrapped”.

If my memory serves me right it was as we were decimating our armed forces that the Argentines decided to reclaim the Falkland Islands as their own. At that time we pulled out all the stops to show that we were not to be messed with.

But, and its a big but, the only way we managed to do anything about the Argentine action was by using a carrier based force. The carriers were then supported by standard Royal Navy ships and co-opted Merchant Navy craft.

With the decommissioning of the Ark we are left with Illustrious to provide us with far distant cover. For the Falklands action we have Invincible and Hermes. Which brings me to another point. Both of those carriers were operating Sea Harrier. The Sea Harrier is also being scrapped.

So I ask, Do you feel exposed ?.

Because behind the emotion of the return of the Ark to Portsmouth I feel an immense disquiet. Successive governments have cut back on funding for our forces. Note I don’t place all the blame on our current government. They are doing the best they can with what they have inherited. But is this the way.

England and the Royal Navy have a fabulous history but we are rapidly becoming a featherweight in international terms.