Submarine leaves Portsmouth after brief visit

A FOREIGN submarine left Portsmouth yesterday after a three-day stay.

HMNLS Walrus and her 62-strong crew arrived at Portsmouth Naval Base on Friday.

The Dutch boat had been conducting sea training with the Royal Navy’s Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST) organisation.

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It was the first time in two years that the city had been visited by a submarine.

Walrus had been training with HMS Argyll, HMS Montrose, RFA Tidespring, 820 Naval Air Squadron and HNoMS Helge Ingsted off the coast of Plymouth.

Lieutenant Commander Jan-Willem Vroegop, Walrus’s commanding officer, said: ‘For the past three weeks we have been working with FOST.

‘During those exercises we’ve been acting as a hostile submarine, so our main task was to search for the frigates and the main target, RFA Tidespring in order to test the boat and her crew.’

Walrus left Portsmouth shortly after midday.

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