Skip to main content

HMS Queen Elizabeth to be deployed to US

Published on: 5 Jun 2019

HMS Queen Elizabeth is to be deployed to the east coast of the United States this year as part of its preparations for full operations.

The warship will stop at a port in the Washington area, where it will first play host to the Atlantic Future Forum. This aims to bring together members of the UK and US military to discuss the changing nature of warfare and shared threats.

HMS Queen Elizabeth will also conduct warfare trials with F-35 jets and as rotary wing training with Merlin and Wildcat helicopters before returning to the UK just before Christmas.

Defence secretary Penny Mordaunt said: "The fact that this important ship will have visited the US twice within her short service thus far is testament to our enduring transatlantic defence relationship."

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the lead ship of the Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carriers, the biggest ever built for the Royal Navy. She is named after the First World War-era super-dreadnought, which was in turn named after the Tudor Queen Elizabeth I.