It’s HMS You, Ma’am!
Queen commissions ‘best of British’ ship the Queen Elizabeth
‘Debt we owe the Navy’
IT was more than 70 years ago, in the closing months of the war in Europe, that Princess Elizabeth launched her first warship at the age of 18.
Then it was the mighty battleship Vanguard, the last of its kind to serve in the Royal Navy.
And yesterday, aged 91, the Queen commissioned Britain’s biggest ever warship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, into the Royal Navy.
In a moving speech to the crew while stood in the hangar of the 65,000 ton aircraft carrier at Portsmouth naval base, she said it embodied the ‘best of British’.
The Queen said: ‘The most powerful and capable ship ever to raise the White Ensign, she will in the years and decades ahead represent the country’s resolve on the global stage.’
Dressed in all purple, the Queen said the new £3.1billion vessel ‘embodies the best of British technology and innovation, a true flagship for the 21st century’.
She praised the service personnel who will crew the carrier, saying: ‘As the daughter, wife and mother of naval officers, I recognise the unique demands our nation asks of you and I will always value my special link with HMS Queen Elizabeth, her ship’s company and their families.’
In November 1944, as Princess Elizabeth, she launched the 44,500 ton HMS Vanguard at Clydebank, near Glasgow. She visited the ship again in 1946, and it carried her to South Africa in 1947 on a royal tour with her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and sister, Princess Margaret.
Yesterday, the Queen addressed 3,700 guests including families, VIPs, and the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Jerry Kyd. A few hundred yards away was Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory.
She said HMS Victory was a reminder of the ‘debt we owe to the Royal Navy which for more than 500 years has protected the people of this country and our interests around the world’. The ceremony finished with a cake representing the ship being cut by the commanding officer’s wife, Karen Kyd, and the youngest member of the ship’s company, Steward Callum Hui, 17.
Cheekily, it featured a figure depicting the Queen holding a sign saying ‘Me’, because she shares her name with the carrier – although it is actually named after Elizabeth I.
HMS Queen Elizabeth was formally commissioned in to the fleet yesterday, but she will not carry out its first mission until 2021, after sea trials.
The Navy has not had an aircraft carrier since HMS Illustrious was scrapped in 2014. First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Philip Jones said that now it had one it could ‘flex our muscles globally’.