The last of the Royal Navy’s Type 22 frigates sailed into her home port for the final time on Tuesday.
HMS Cornwall joined her sister ships Chatham, Campbeltown and Cumberland when she docked at Plymouth’s Devonport Naval Base after a six-month tour combating Somali pirates off East Africa.
The ships are due to be decommissioned later this year after being axed in the coalition government’s Comprehensive Spending Review in October last year.
As HMS Cornwall arrived in port to waves and cheers from almost 1,000 family members and friends of the 253-strong crew who lined the dockside, emotions ran high.
Commander David Wilkinson, the ship’s commanding officer, said his crew had been “utterly professional” at sea but were allowed to show their emotions when disembarking for the last time.
“It is always sad for any sea-going naval officer to see a ship leave service and HMS Cornwall is a most beautiful and capable ship,” he said.
“But she is one of the oldest class of ships and it is time for the old lady to retire. It is also always an emotional time for a ship’s company to arrive home after a long, hard and dangerous deployment. But this was an especially sad occasion as it is HMS Cornwall’s final entry into her base-port.
“These ships have proved themselves, especially HMS Cumberland and my ship, on challenging versatile patrols which proves not only the worth of such ships but also the Royal Navy’s value worldwide.”
HMS Cornwall left the UK on October 28 last year to patrol the Gulf of Aden as the command ship of a counter piracy task force of a multinational naval flotilla. While in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden they helped free five Yemeni fishermen and their dhow, capturing 23 pirates.
The ship was heralded into Devonport on Tuesday by the Plymouth Pipe Band, a fly-past of the ship’s Lynx helicopter and fire-fighting tugs firing their high pressures hoses high into the air.
The ship also flew its lengthy decommissioning pennant and fired an 11-shot salute on its ceremonial gun as it passed the Plymouth Hoe seafront.
Cdr Wilkinson, from Southampton, was met on the jetty by his wife Pam, a nurse, son Samuel, 12, and daughter Nieamh, eight.
Ms Wilkinson said: “It is fantastic for us all to have David back again. They have missed him for six months. Sam is now waiting for the school half term to surf and kayak with his dad.”
Launched in October 1985 by the Princess of Wales, HMS Cornwall is the sixth ship to have carried the name in the Royal Navy.