HMS Exeter D89 Type 42 Destroyer 26 September 1985 With HMS Jupiter Photo Print

HMS Exeter (D89), a Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer, steams in company with the Leander Class frigate HMS Jupiter (F60) and the American carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) on 26 September 1985, seen from the air over a calm blue sea. Exeter is in the foreground on the left, her two white radar domes and single funnel clear as she follows in the long white wake of Jupiter, which leads on the right. Beyond them, Kitty Hawk keeps pace on a parallel course, her flight deck crowded with the aircraft of Carrier Air Wing 9, all three ships trailing straight wakes behind them. Exeter and Jupiter were deployed together on the Armilla Patrol from June to November 1985, the Royal Navy’s standing presence protecting British merchant shipping in and around the Gulf. Kitty Hawk was on a Western Pacific and Indian Ocean deployment from July to December that year, and this meeting brought the British and American ships together for a day of exercises. Exeter returned to the Gulf six years later in Operation Granby, the British part of the 1991 Gulf War. Under Captain Nigel Essenhigh she provided Sea Dart air defence for American battleships and minehunters. You can read more about the history of HMS Exeter HERE This print is ideal for those who served in HMS Exeter or HMS Jupiter on the 1985 Armilla Patrol, and anyone with a connection to the Type 42 destroyers. Product Details Image Taken: 26th September 1985 Photographer: PH2 Frank Davidson, U.S. Navy © Public Domain - Restored by Hampshire Prints