HMS ''Edinburgh'' was a Type 42 (Batch 3) destroyer of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

. ''Edinburgh'' was built by

Cammell Laird Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, ...

Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...

. She was launched on 14 April 1983 and commissioned on 17 December 1985. The largest of the Type 42 destroyers, ''Edinburgh'' was known as the "Fortress of the Sea". ''Edinburgh'' was the last of the Type 42 destroyer to serve in the Royal Navy and was decommissioned on 6 June 2013.

Distinctive appearance

''Edinburgh'' was readily distinguished by her distinctively different

forecastle The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck (ship), deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is t ...

. When it was decided to fit the

Phalanx CIWS The Phalanx CIWS () is an automated gun-based close-in weapon system to defend military watercraft automatically against incoming threats such as aircraft, missiles, and small boats. It was designed and manufactured by the General Dynamics Co ...

to this class of warships, it was intended that ''Edinburgh'' should carry a single CIWS unit, mounted forward between her 4.5-inch gun and the Sea Dart launcher. To this end, her breakwaters were enlarged and she was fitted with a raised bulwark, very like those carried on the

Type 22 frigate The Type 22 frigate also known as the ''Broadsword'' class was a ship class, class of frigates built for the British Royal Navy. Fourteen were built in total, with production divided into three batches. Initially intended to be anti-submarine ...

s. This location proved to be an unsuitably wet one for the Phalanx system despite the modifications to this warship, and ''Edinburgh'' was later fitted with a pair of wing-mounted CIWS as carried by the other ships of the class, but she retained her distinctive bulwark and enlarged breakwaters.

Operations

1990-2001

In 1990, ''Edinburgh'' completed a refit, which included the fitting of the

Phalanx The phalanx (: phalanxes or phalanges) was a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar polearms tightly packed together. The term is particularly used t ...

Close-in weapon system A close-in weapon system (CIWS ) is a point-defense weapon system for detecting and destroying short-range incoming missiles and enemy aircraft which have penetrated the outer defenses, typically mounted on a naval ship. Nearly all classes of l ...

(CIWS). In 1994, ''Edinburgh'' was present at a Fleet Review to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

landings in 1944. In 1998, ''Edinburgh'' deployed to the

South Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...

, where she patrolled the waters around the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

, as well as making 'fly-the-flag' visits to various

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

n ports.

2002-2010

On 27 September 2002, ''Edinburgh'' sailed into the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is a major river in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it h ...

to escort the yachts at the end of the

Clipper Round the World Yacht Race The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is a biennial sailing race that takes paying amateur crews on one or more legs of a circumnavigation of the globe in 11 specially designed identical yachts owned by Clipper Ventures. Professional skippers ...

. In January 2003, ''Edinburgh'' deployed to the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

and subsequently took part in the Second Gulf War against the dictator

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

. While there, ''Edinburgh'' performed a variety of tasks, which included supporting the

Royal Marines The Royal Marines provide the United Kingdom's amphibious warfare, amphibious special operations capable commando force, one of the :Fighting Arms of the Royal Navy, five fighting arms of the Royal Navy, a Company (military unit), company str ...

ashore, as well as being escort to the helicopter carrier . She returned to her home base at

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

in May. In April 2004, ''Edinburgh'' deployed to the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

, where she first joined Standing Naval Force Mediterranean (STANAVFORMED), and while there she took part in

Operation Active Endeavour Operation Active Endeavour was a Navy, maritime operation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It operated in the Mediterranean Sea and was designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction. It had collateral ben ...

, designed to monitor sea lanes as part of the war on terror. On her return to the UK, ''Edinburgh'' went into an extensive refit in

Rosyth Rosyth () is a town and Garden City in Fife, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth. Scotland's first Garden city movement, Garden City, Rosyth is part of the Greater Dunfermline Area and is located 3 miles south of Dunfermline city cen ...

. She left Rosyth in September 2005 to conduct trials to ensure that she was materially up to operational standard before conducting operational sea training in the New Year. ''Edinburgh'' then took part in Exercise Neptune Warrior off the coast of Scotland; conducted a High Seas Firing of her Sea Dart missile system and then took part in the multi-national BALTOPS exercise in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

. The time in the Baltic included visits to Sweden, Germany and Estonia. During the visit to Estonia, ''Edinburgh'' took part in the naval parade celebrating an Estonian national holiday. In autumn 2006 Edinburgh deployed to the Falkland Islands remaining there until June 2007. The extended nature of the deployment was made possible by the "Sea Swap" trial, an initiative to try and extend operational deployments by keeping the ship in theatre and swapping crews; in this case the crews of HMS EXETER and EDINBURGH. The swap was completed in March and while not an unqualified success, it did achieve the object of the trial in keeping a ship on station for a longer period of time. EDINBURGH was the centre piece for the 25th anniversary celebration of the liberation of the Falkland Islands in June 2007 and she finally returned home to Portsmouth in August 2007 via, Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleze in Brazil and Tenerife. The crews of both ships then "unswapped" in September 2007. ''Edinburgh'' was deployed to the Middle and Far East from February until late July 2008 as part of Orion 2008, including a visit to Singapore and operations in the Gulf, during which she took part in an interception of a drugs cargo.

2010 refit

''Edinburgh'' became the last

Type 42 destroyer The Type 42 or ''Sheffield'' class was a class of fourteen guided-missile destroyers that served in the Royal Navy.Marriott, Leo: ''Royal Navy Destroyers since 1945'', , Ian Allan Ltd, 1989 A further two ships of this class were built for and ...

to undergo a refit when she entered dry dock on 25 January 2010 at

BAE Systems Surface Ships BAE Systems plc is a British multinational aerospace, military and information security company, based in London. It is the largest manufacturer in Britain as of 2017. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe and the seventh largest i ...

shipyard in

Portsmouth Naval Base His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is loc ...

for work to keep the ship in service until 2013. Under a £17.5 million contract, the company refurbished the destroyer's weapons and communications systems, added a transom flap to the stern and applied a coat of

International Paint International Paint, abbreviated as International, is a brand of the Marine & Protective Coatings business unit of AkzoNobel. History In 1881, the German brothers Max and Albert Holzapfel, along with Charles Petrie, founded the Holzapfel Compositi ...

's Intersleek 900 foul-release paint. The refit included a renewal of crew living quarters, catering facilities and laundry equipment. ''Edinburgh''s four

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

gas turbine engines were removed; with two being replaced by new units (starboard Olympus TM3B and port Tyne RM1C). In a company statement on 18 January 2010, BAE Systems said that the modifications would cut fuel consumption by 15 per cent. ''Edinburgh'' emerged from refit in September 2010 to undergo sea trials that include testing the ship's propulsion machinery, radar and communication equipment, as well as her ability to conduct flying operations. ''Edinburgh''s signatures were assessed for radar cross section, heat, magnetic and acoustics before trials culminating in live firings of medium and close range weapons. The ship was formally accepted back into the fleet in late October 2010, followed by a rededication ceremony in early November.

2011-2013

In April 2011 ''Edinburgh'' successfully completed Sea-Dart missile firing trials. May 2011 saw the ship begin an eight-month deployment visiting the

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

and

. On 13 April 2012 ''Edinburgh'' fired the last ever operational Sea Dart missiles after a thirty-year career. The last two remaining Type 42s, and ''Edinburgh'' completed their careers without the system being operational. On 7 May 2013 ''Edinburgh'' arrived in the

Pool of London The Pool of London is a stretch of the River Thames from London Bridge to below Limehouse. Part of the Tideway of the Thames, the Pool was navigable by tall-masted vessels bringing coastal and later overseas goods—the wharves there were t ...

, at the start of a farewell tour of Great Britain. She called at Edinburgh from 15 to 21 May, followed by

, where she was built. Her final call on the tour was

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis ( ) is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and ...

on 29 May, prior to sailing for Portsmouth for decommissioning. She arrived in Portsmouth on 31 May and was open to the public there on 1 and 2 June. She was decommissioned on 6 June.

Fate

In May 2013 a campaign was launched to bring ''Edinburgh'' to the Port of Leith and convert her into a museum. However this was not successful and ''Edinburgh'' departed Portsmouth on 12 August 2015 under tow to be dismantled in Turkey.

Affiliations

* The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion

Royal Regiment of Scotland The Royal Regiment of Scotland (SCOTS) is the British Army Order of Precedence, senior and only current Scottish regiment, Scottish line infantry Regiment#British Army, regiment of the British Army Infantry. It consists of three regular (form ...

* No. 8 Squadron RAF *City of Edinburgh Branch, Royal Naval Association

References

External links

HMS ''Edinburgh''
on Royal Navy website (archived on

The National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...

website) {{DEFAULTSORT:Edinburgh (D97) Cold War destroyers of the United Kingdom 1983 ships History of Edinburgh Ships built on the River Mersey Type 42 destroyers of the Royal Navy