19 April 2018
Royal Navy submarine HMS Trenchant has broken through the ice of the North Pole with two US submarines to bring Ice Exercise 2018 to an end.
A few weeks after punching through the ice off Alaska, the hunter-killer submarine emerged at the top of the world some 2,750 miles from – and 37 degrees Celsius colder than – her home base of Plymouth.
Trenchant joined the USS Connecticut and USS Hartford for the drills, co-ordinated by the US Navy’s Arctic Submarine Laboratory, and broke through the ice at the North Pole five times. The demanding trials are designed to test submariners’ skills in operating in the frigid climate of the Arctic Circle.
Minister for the Armed Forces Mark Lancaster said: “This exercise shows that our Royal Navy is primed and ready to operate in the harshest conditions imaginable, to protect our nation from any potential threats. I was recently on board HMS Trenchant while she was under the ice and saw first-hand the skill and precision with which they worked alongside our US allies.”
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