MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

HMS Exeter is celebrated in a new set of Falklands stamps.

“Five ships of the Royal Navy have been named after the city of Exeter in Devon. Two were built in the 20th Century and both were to play important roles in the history of the Falkland Islands, explained Falklands Philatelic Bureau Manager Anton Livermore.

“Five ships of the Royal Navy have been named after the city of Exeter in Devon. Two were built in the 20th Century and both were to play important roles in the history of the Falkland Islands, explained Falklands Philatelic Bureau Manager Anton Livermore.

The first of these (as shown on the 4p and 20p stamps) was commissioned in July 1931. She joined the Atlantic Fleet and was a regular and welcome visitor to the Falklands. On the outbreak of war in 1939 she formed part of the South American Division with HMS Cumberland and, together with the light cruisers Ajax and Achilles, engaged the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in the Battle of the River Plate on December 13, 1939.

This heroic action, which resulted in the scuttling of the Graf Spee several days later, was Britain’s first major sea victory of the war and achieved worldwide fame for Exeter.

Captain Langsdorf said of Exeter before taking his own life after the scuttling of the Graf Spee, “I knocked out their foremost guns; I smashed their bridge; yet, with only one gun firing, they came at me again. One can only have respect for such foe as that”.

Outgunned and outranged, Exeter was hit by seven 11-inch shells and suffered considerable damage. With many of her crew dead and wounded, her three guns out of action and her speed reduced to 18 knots she was forced to withdraw from the battle and to make for Port Stanley in the Falklands for emergency repairs. Such was the damage that most of her crew, which included two Falkland Islanders, were temporarily billeted ashore with the people of Stanley. Returning to England Captain Bell’s farewell message to the Islanders concluded “Long shall we remember you with gratitude in our hearts”. For her part in the battle she received the fifth ‘Battle Honour’ for her name.

On March 1 1942, having been sent to the Middle East, she was eventually sunk by Japanese battle ships at the Bawean Island.

The wreck of HMS Exeter was eventually discovered in the Java Sea using side scan sonar - and the assistance of an original Japanese Navy battle chart - on the evening of February 21, 2007, culminating five years of persistent searching by a dedicated group of shipwreck explorers aboard the dive vessel MV Empress.

Over a period of several days a number of dives were made on HMS Exeter and one of the divers, Kevin Denlay, attached a Royal Navy Ensign to the wreck that ‘flew’ during the last dive, and which he then recovered before ascending from the dive.

On a return visit to the wreck site by MV Empress in April 2008, another Ensign ‘donated’ for the occasion by the crew of the destroyer HMS Exeter - D89, was attached to the port torpedo tubes on the wreck and left flying ‘in situ’ in honour of the lost cruisers fallen crew. This Ensign still remains on the wreck today. The Ensign that had previously been flown over the wreck (and recovered) by Mr Denlay was later presented to several survivors from HMS Exeter during a memorial service over the wreck site aboard HMS Kent in July 2008; and that Ensign now resides in Exeter Cathedral in Exeter city.

HMS Exeter (D89) (seen on the 30p £1.66p) was the seventh Type 42 destroyer and the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to be called Exeter. Designed to provide area air defence to a group of ships, a secondary role was to provide naval Gunfire Support, take part in anti-surface operations and to provide anti-submarine capabilities. Type 42’s are often used to provide aid during disaster relief operations.

Built by Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Limited, she was commissioned on September 19, 1980. In 1982 she was deployed from the Caribbean to the Falklands to replace the HMS Sheffield, where she was credited with shooting down four Argentine aircraft. Exeter was the last ship to engage with enemy aircraft before the end of the conflict and was awarded the eighth ‘Battle Honour’ for her name.

She was also involved in defence activities in 1991 when employed as an escort for a US Battleship and Mine Counter-Measures Unit off the Kuwait coast during the 1991 Gulf War, for which she received her final ‘Battle Honour’. Exeter has been posted to 14 major deployments since she entered service and in 2004 visited the supposed position of her predecessor in the Java Sea to remember her last action and sinking as described above.

In 2005 she took part in the International Fleet Review to mark the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, in 2008 anchored in the Thames to host the launch of the Bond novel Devil May Care and in 2007 attended the 25th anniversary commemorations of the Falklands War at Newquay, Cornwall, as the last remaining Royal Navy ship in commission to have served in the Falklands.

In May 2009, the ceremony to decommission Exeter was held at Portsmouth, with 325 invited guests, including the Lord Mayor of Exeter and it seems that there may not be another HMS Exeter for several decades. During her lengthy service around the globe Exeter clocked up almost 900,000 nautical miles.

Info provided by www.falklandstamps.com