THE azure warm waters of a 100ft column of water towering above Gosport bare little relation to those of the Barents or Black Seas or the vast Pacific.

THE new season of the BBC’s documentary series Timewatch opens with the remarkable story of the first submarine vs submarine battle underwater.

IN KEEPING with HMS Ark Royal’s new role as a commando assault ship, helicopter trials have been the order of the day as the carrier emerges from refit.

THE first full month of the Royal Marines’ deployment to southern Afghanistan has seen the Taliban insurgents engaged – and regularly defeated.

THE crew of HMS Gloucester have had an experience many would envy, a seagoing tour of the Highlands with glorious weather and beautiful scenery.

VETERANS, dignitaries and today’s sailors joined in remembrance of a post-war tragedy which claimed the lives of 44 Senior Servicemen.

LIFE has been breathed into the first of Britain’s next-generation destroyers.

HOMEWARD-bound are the good folk of HMS Kent, their duties keeping terrorists in check in the Gulf finally at an end.

ONE hundred and thirty three High Street, Gilfach Goch, is a rather unremarkable house in a Welsh village – except that it is now adorned with a blue plaque to honour its greatest inhabitant.

FOR the first time the most potent fighter in Britain’s arsenal has come under Navy control.

A HUGE boom echoing around Swansea Bay signaled the success outcome of yet another call-out for the busy chaps of Southern Diving Unit 1.

THE top guns of HMS Exeter fired up their 4.5in main armament yet again as the ship joined a demonstration. task force in the Western Approaches.

COMMEMORATION not celebration will be the theme of events  to mark the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War.

ARGUABLY the world’s leading authority on Britain’s finest admiral picked up the most coveted award in naval journalism and writing.

FRESH from six weeks in the Baltic and Skagerrak, HMS Cornwall was given no time to breathe when she arrived back in Blighty.

YOU can’t beat springtime. Flowers bursting into bloom. The birds singing. The two feet of snow to sweep off the upper deck.

HISTORIANS can now search through a treasure trove of RN history from the comfort of their own homes.

HMS Sheffield might not have been lost in the Falklands “if the right reactions had been taken” by her crew according to official papers released into her sinking.

NAVY police are donning hi-tech head cameras in the fight against crime and anti-social behaviour.

QUESTION. What do Robbie Williams and Rachel Stevens have in common?

A COMBINED Royal Fleet Auxiliary and Fleet Air Arm effort helped to snare £300m cocaine in the Caribbean.

OFFICIAL documents finally reveal what most people suspected: that the death of legendary diver Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb was indeed covered up.

SEVERAL thousand people braved blustery conditions in the Solent to welcome HMS Ark Royal home to Portsmouth after more than two years out of action.