HMS Liverpool pummelled an enemy rocket battery after it opened fire on the destroyer off the besieged Libyan city of Misrata this morning.
The words ‘Four-five, engage’ were issued after a salvo of rockets was launched at Liverpool as she and Allied warships tried to stop Colonel Gaddafi’s forces mining the waters off the port.The destroyer’s main 4.5in gun responded with a series of withering blows which silenced the pro-government battery.
It’s the first time the main guns of the Royal Navy have been fired in anger since they plastered Saddam Hussein’s defences in the opening moments of the 2003 Iraq campaign.
After a break in Crete, Liverpool returned to waters off Libya for her second patrol to continue enforcing UN Security Council resolutions – preventing arms and munitions reaching Col Gaddafi and ensuring aid reaches the free peoples of Libya.
Pro-government forces have made sustained attempts to block the approaches to Misrata port with mines, including one thwarted by HMS Brocklesby a fortnight ago when the Portsmouth-based minehunter blew up a mine laid a mile or so off the harbour.
Last night Liverpool and other NATO warships were sent in to intercept inflatable boats seen approaching Misrata; the small fast craft are used to lay and anchor the mines to the seabed.
As the force moved in, one of the regime’s coastal batteries fired a salvo at Liverpool – which missed – and the destroyer immediately sent a response of steel and fire in the direction of the rocket launchers which promptly ceased firing.
The sweep by the Allied warships also caused the pro-Gaddafi boats to abandon their mining operation before laying their deadly ‘eggs’.
0 comments:
Post a Comment