HMS Prince of Wales Enters Indian Ocean After Red Sea Transit

 
HMS Prince of Wales (R09) and its carrier support group (CSG) have transited the Bab el Mandeb and are now in the Indian Ocean, according to a press statement released by the UK’s Royal Navy. Having transited the Suez Canal on May 25, the CSG looks to have spent up to ten days operating in the Red Sea.

Operational security appears to have been maintained as the CSG slipped through the southern Red Sea, passing the strip of coastline from Ras Isa to Hodeida occupied by the Houthis, and where the threat from drones, missiles, and one-way boat bombs is greatest.

Houthi-controlled press and media reported neither the entry nor departure of the CSG through the zone where the militants have in the past mounted the bulk of their attacks on shipping. Nor has the Royal Navy provided an account of operational activity and tactics employed, mindful perhaps that they will likely be returning through the same waters on the return leg of their Indo-Pacific cruise later in the year.

 

Prince of Wales passing under the Al Salam Bridge crossing the Suez Canal (Royal Navy)

 

The Prince of Wales CSG is now being joined by the logistics support vessel RFA Tidespring (A136). The CSG’s air wing is also being supported by two RAF KC-2 Voyager tanker aircraft which have been seen on the ground and which have been active over the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea north of Socotra.

USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) with Carrier Air Wing 2 embarked and its CSG remains deployed in the same sea area. The two CSGs will presumably will be operating in mutual support. Vinson has taken over the deployment in the region relieving USS Harry S. Truman which after several extensions to its deployment was permitted to depart in May. She made brief stops in the Mediterranean before reaching her home port in Norfolk, Virginia on June 1 after 251 days.

The Royal Navy announced in April that HMS Prince of Wales was departing leading an international Carrier Strike Group for an eight-month mission to the Indo-Pacific. Defence Secretary John Healey reported it would be the UK's biggest naval deployment of 2025. She has conducted exercises in the Mediterranean and now begins the journey eastward for the primary phase of her goodwill mission.