THE words ‘Luftwaffe’ and ‘Royal Navy’ in close proximity invariably evoke memories of Crete in 1941…

… not the Baltic in 2007, but the year began with HMS Brocklesby facing the full force as the German Air Force.

Thankfully the Luftwaffe were only using simulated rockets and bombs, so the small Portsmouth-based minehunter escaped any damage.

Brocklesby has taken over from her sister HMS Middleton with NATO’s Mine Counter-Measures Group 1 – a force of half a dozen ships which patrols European waters constantly.

The Hunt-class ship made a beeline through the Kiel Canal to the famous Baltic port where she joined the rest of the NATO force before sailing down the Holstein coast to Neustadt.

The small port is home to Germany’s Ausbildungszentrum Schiffssicherung der Marine – Training Centre for Naval Ship Protection or AZS – a mix of the RN’s Phoenix damage control school and FOST.

And so it was that Brocklesby and the rest of the NATO group were subjected to air attack, forced to fight fires and to patch up hulls as the waters poured in.

And for a dozen ‘lucky’ members of the ship’s company there was the opportunity to do this all over again ashore in the AZS. The ‘fun’ included damage control in water at bath temperature, completing an indoor obstacle course and fitness test wearing breathing apparatus, and putting out some fires.

If that wasn’t enough, the German FOSTies decided to stage a mock fire on one of the minehunters to see how the rest of the force would respond.

From Neustadt the ships sailed across Mecklenburg Bay to the historic port of Rostock (in Cold War times home to the East German Volksmarine). ‘Cold’ was a fitting description for Rostock; Brocklesby came alongside in a blizzard.

The cold weather has persisted. From Rostock the group sailed for Bergen in Norway via the Skagerrak (where the minehunters were buffeted by near-gale-force winds) and the calmer Inner Leads. The ship then earned a blue nose by entering the Arctic Circle for exercises with the Norwegian fleet.