Sic transit gloria

The UK Royal Navy has existed in one way or another for over a thousand years, and was the salvation of the island nation when the Spanish Armada came calling and defended Britain again throughout the Napoleonic Wars. The successful conclusion of the latter led to the suppression of the slave trade and a “Pax Brittanica” which lasted nearly a hundred years.

The Royal Navy gave the young American Navy a mark to measure up against as we defended our own island nation in the first hundred years of our existence, and continued to provide an exemplary tradition of professional excellence and technological leadership. We owe the Brits steam catapults and Fresnel optical lens landing systems for aircraft carriers, and a pride in naval gunnery excellence generally. They gave naval history storied names like Camperdown, the Nile, the Glorious First of June, Trafalgar and Jutland.

With the loss of empire after World War II, both the justification and economic supports for the grand fleet slowly degraded, although the Brits fought alongside us with honor again and again, including Tomahawk strikes against strategic targets in Iraq in 2003. In fact, a British air defense destroyer – the HMS York – helped to provide air defense for my own ship during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. They were few but mighty, compared to us, but still the world’s second largest fleet.

Hard news then, for fans of the Royal Navy, for partisans of the anglosphere – the Royal Navy is about to become fewer still:

Royal Navy commanders were in uproar yesterday after it was revealed that almost half of the Fleet’s 44 warships are to be mothballed as part of a Ministry of Defence cost-cutting measure.

And this must really hurt:

The six warships to be mothballed are the Type 22 frigates Cumberland, Chatham, Cornwall and Campbeltown and two Type 42 destroyers Southampton and Exeter.

It is likely that they will eventually be sold or scrapped. There are also fears in the Admiralty that two new aircraft carriers, promised in 1998, might never be built.

Meanwhile the French navy, which will be far superior to the Royal Navy after the cuts, will announce before the April presidential elections that a new carrier will be built.

What a shame.

Come, cheer up, my lads, ’tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,
For who are as free as the sons of the waves?

CHORUS

Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men,
we always are ready; Steady, boys, steady!
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.

We ne’er see our foes but we wish them to stay,
They never see us but they wish us away;
If they run, why we follow, and run them ashore,
And if they won’t fight us, we cannot do more.

CHORUS…

They swear they’ll invade us, these terrible foes,
They frighten our women, our children and beaus,
But should their flat bottoms in darkness get o’er,
Still Britons they’ll find to receive them on shore.

CHORUS…

Britannia triumphant, her ships sweep the sea,
Her standard is Justice — her watchword, ‘be free.’
Then cheer up, my lads, with one heart let us sing,
Our soldiers, our sailors, our statesmen, and king.

CHORUS…