History
Marlborough was the first naval ship on the scene to assist the stricken USS Cole after she was attacked in Aden, Yemen in October 2000. Marlborough, under the command of Captain Anthony Rix, was on passage to the UK after a six-month deployment in the Gulf and had a full medical detachment on board; when her offer of assistance was accepted she immediately diverted to Aden.
Marlborough played a key role in the second Gulf War, under the command of Captain Mark Anderson.
In July 2004, it was announced that Marlborough would be one of three Type 23 ships to be decommissioned by the end of 2006.
In October 2004 Marlborough again came to the aid of a stricken ally when she was dispatched to assist HMCS Chicoutimi, adrift off the northwest Irish coast and arrived at the scene where RFA Wave Knight and Marlborough's sister-ship Montrose were present. Montrose had been the first ship to make contact with the boat. Other ships were also dispatched, including RFA Argus.
Prior to her decommissioning, Marlborough had a US Navy officer permanently assigned to her crew. Reciprocally, a Royal Navy officer is permanently assigned to the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill.
The 2003 defence cuts committed Marlborough to pay off by March 2006. In June 2005, it was announced that Marlborough would be sold to the Chilean Navy. The Chilean Navy officially welcomed their new Almirante Condell into the fleet at a Commissioning Ceremony on 28 May 2008. The vessel was the last of three former Royal Navy Type-23 frigates to be handed over to Chile, under a £134 million pound sales agreement arranged by the MOD’s Disposal Services Authority and signed in September 2005. She joins her sister ships in the Chilean Navy, the former HMS Norfolk and former HMS Grafton, handed over in November 2006 and March 2007 respectively.
Read more about this topic: HMS Marlborough (F233)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)