SALUTING the ship which has served the nation for 30 years – and which he has commanded for the past two – Commander Rex Cox bids farewell to HMS Manchester.
The destroyer formally bowed out of the Senior Service this morning as she was decommissioned in Portsmouth Naval Base.
Having sailed the equivalent of 35 times around the globe, Manchester – known affectionately by her 250 sailors as the Mighty Manch or Busy Bee – will sail no more as she makes way for the next generation of destroyers gradually entering service.
Commanding Officers and crew past and present, affiliates and dignitaries from the namesake Lancastrian city witnessed the final chapter in the ship’s career, as the ships’ former chaplain Father Mike Wagstaff led the decommissioning ceremony with musical accompaniment from the Band of the Royal Marines School of Music in Portsmouth.
Cdr Cox told his ship’s company and guests that Manchester had been “a very special ship” which had left her mark “on everyone who has had the good fortune to serve on her”.
He said her passing was a day of sadness mixed with “great pride in a destroyer that has served the Navy with distinction and is now ready to pass on the baton to the next generation, the Type 45s.
“It is the people however that have made this great ship what she is and each and every one of them
has made their contribution over the years. It has been an immense privilege and enormous fun to
the last commanding officer of the Busy Bee and to command such a cracking ship’s company.”
Although the Manchester story is now over, you can follow her deeds on her final deployment courtesy of a Channel 5 documentary each Monday night at 5pm.
Experienced documentary maker Chris Terrill – who in the past has produced series on HMS Chatham and the Royal Marines in Afghanistan – joined Manchester in the Caribbean last summer and autumn and witnessed her drug-busting exploits, as well as the humanitarian aid the ship offered in the wake of hurricanes smashing through the region.
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