THE highest military award for peace work has been presented to HMS Chatham for her efforts to rebuild life in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The frigate was sent to the east coast of Sri Lanka to provide what humanitarian aid she could around the town of Batticaloa, accompanied by the RFA repair vessel Diligence.

The two ships found the town and environs devastated; at least 2,500 people had been killed by the giant wave, another 1,000 were missing and around 60,000 people had been made homeless.

The RN/RFA efforts were concentrated on restoring vital services – water and electricity chiefly – repairing fishing vessels, schools, churches and hospitals, and providing some shelter for the homeless.

Twenty miles from Batticaloa the village of Kallar had been cut off by the wave and its hospital wrecked; a party from Chatham cleared, cleaned and sanitized the building, then the ship’s medical team held a clinic to check on any ailments caused in the tsunami’s aftermath.

Chatham had been in Dubai when an earthquake, measuring 9 on the Richter scale, rocked the seabed off the Indonesian coast – triggering the tsunami which raced across the ocean.

Her efforts that fateful January earned her the Firmin Sword of Peace (previously the Wilkinson Sword of Peace, but now sponsored by sword manufacturers Firmin & Son), presented annually to the ship or unit in the Armed Forces which contributes most to the greater good at home or abroad.

Recent recipients of the coveted award, which is modeled on a 19th-Century sword owned by a Lt Samuel Snook who helped return Indian refugees to their homeland, include HMS Richmond for relief work in the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, and RFA Sir Galahad for delivering aid to Iraq just a week after the campaign against Saddam Hussein began.