EXETER HMS (D89)

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Built as a destroyer under yard No 101 by Sawn Hunter Shipbuilders Ltd., Wallsend for the Royal Navy.
22 July 1976 keel laid down.
25 April 1978 launched as HMS EXETER (D89) the first of the slightly modified “Batch 2” Type 42 destroyers. She was christened by Lady Joan Mulley. She was the 5th ship in the Royal Navy that carried the name EXETER.
Displacement 3,500 tons standard, 4,100 tons full load. Dim. 125 x 14.3 x 5.8m. (draught).
Powered COGOG by 2 Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B gas-turbines delivering 50,000 shp., and 2 Roll-Royce Tyne RM1C gas turbines delivering 19,900 shp., twin shafts, speed 29 knots.
Armament: 1 Sea Dart twin launcher (22 missiles), 1 Vickers 4.5 inch gun, 2 0r 4 Oerlikon 20mm AA.
2 – 20mm Vulcan Phalanx CIWS, two twin 324mm Mk and 3 torpedo tubes.
Carried one Lynx HMA Mk8.
Crew 287.
19 September 1980 commissioned.

1982 She took part in the Falkland War, shooting down four Argentine aircraft.
30 May 1982 she shot down with Sea Darts, two A-4C Skyhawks which did belong to FAA Grupo 4 east of the Falkland Islands.
07 June a Learjet 35A of FAA Photo-Reconnaissance Grupo 1was shot down by a Sea Dart over Pebble Island. The same day she shot down by an other Sea Dart a Canberra B62 of FAA Grupo 2 west of Stanley.

1991 During the Gulf War in Operation Granby when she was employed as an escort for US battleships and Mine-Counter-Measures Unit off the Kuwait coast.

1997 She underwent a refit at the Rosyth Dockyard, the refit was completed in 1998.

In 2004 she visited the supposed position of her predecessor in the Java Sea to remember her last action and sinking.
2007 She attended the 25th anniversary commemorations of the Falkland war at Newquay, Cornwall, as the last Royal Navy ship in commission to have served in the Falklands War.

30 July 2008 placed in a state of Extended Readiness at HMNB Portsmouth.
27 May 2009 decommissioned.

She is on the sale list, when not found a buyer she will go to the scrapyard.

November 2011 arrived by Leyal SG, Aliaga, Turkey for scrapping.

Falkland Islands 2009 30p and £1.66 sg?, scott?
Falkland Islands 2014 75p sg?, scott?

Sources: The Encyclopadia of Warships. http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/otherexeters.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Exeter_(D89)

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In early 2010 HMS EXETER was in use as a training hulk to assist with the training of new naval base tugs. She was put up for sale by auction on 28 March 2011 and finally towed away to be scrapped at Leyal Ship Recycling in Turkey on 23 September 2011, provoking some criticism from former crew members who were upset that the Ministry of Defence had apparently failed to inform them of the ship's fate.
Source: Wikipedia.
Peter Crichton