By PAN PYLAS, Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II made a quick visit Saturday to the Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier that bears the name of her eponymous forebear, ahead of its maiden operational deployment.
The HMS Queen Elizabeth, named after the Tudor-era monarch who vanquished the Spanish Armada, will be leading a 28-week deployment to the Far East that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted is not confrontational towards China.
The 3 billion-pound ($4.2 billion) ship, which has eight RAF F35B stealth fighter jets on board, will depart from Portsmouth Naval Base in southern England later Saturday. It will be accompanied by six Royal Navy ships, a submarine, 14 naval helicopters and a company of Royal Marines.
Arriving by helicopter, the 95-year-old monarch was greeted by the ship’s commanding officer Captain Angus Essenhigh and Commodore Stephen Moorhouse, commander of the U.K. Carrier Strike Group.
The carrier group will travel through the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, then from the Gulf of Aden to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean to the Philippine…
