HMS Charybdis F75 Leander Class Frigate 1979 Photo Print

HMS Charybdis (F75), a Royal Navy Leander Class frigate, steams in company with warships of three other NATO navies in the Mediterranean in about June 1979, seen from the air with “F75” clear on her hull. She is third in a line of four ships running abreast, with her starboard side to the camera. Her gun turret is on the forecastle, her funnel and masts stand amidships with a large radar aerial, and her flight deck is aft. The others, each trailing a long white wake, are the American frigate USS Brumby (FF-1044) at the top, the Italian frigate Carabiniere (F581) and, nearest the camera, the Turkish destroyer TCG Tinaztepe (D355), formerly the American USS Keppler. Charybdis, known to her crew as “Cherry B”, was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, launched on 28 February 1968 and commissioned on 2 June 1969. She was the last ship the yard built for the Royal Navy, until RFA Fort Victoria was launched in 1990. Early in 1979 she was on another Mediterranean patrol. Later that year she began a refit that removed her guns and gave her Exocet and Sea Wolf missiles, and that work was cut short when Argentina invaded the Falklands in 1982. In 1991 she provided Sea Wolf protection for HMS Ark Royal during the Gulf War, and she was sunk as a target off Benbecula on 11 June 1993. You can read more about the history of HMS Charybdis HERE This print is ideal for those who served in HMS Charybdis in the 1970s and anyone with an interest in NATO operations in the Mediterranean during the Cold War. Product Details Image Taken: c. June 1979 Photographer: U.S. Navy © Public Domain - Restored by Hampshire Prints