HMS Prince of Wales Comes Home: Portsmouth Welcomes Royal Navy Flagship After Epic Indo-Pacific Mission

Crowds packed Old Portsmouth, the Round Tower and Gosport’s waterfront on Sunday, 30 November 2025, braving the cold to welcome home the Royal Navy’s flagship, HMS Prince of Wales, after an eight-month Indo-Pacific deployment.

With drone warnings in place, cameras at the ready and kids on shoulders, this was the biggest naval homecoming Portsmouth Harbour has seen in around 20 years, a proper “only-in-Pompey” moment as 65,000 tons of aircraft carrier slid past Spice Island and Gunwharf Quays.

A three-ship parade into Portsmouth Harbour

The homecoming unfolded like a carefully choreographed harbour show.

First into the Solent was Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless, which reached the Outer Spit Buoy at around 8 am before gliding past the Round Tower just before 8:45 am – greeted by early-rising families wrapped in scarves and Royal Navy hoodies.

Around lunchtime, the main event appeared on the horizon: HMS Prince of Wales, the £3.2 billion aircraft carrier that’s been leading the UK Carrier Strike Group (CSG) on Operation Highmast. She passed Southsea and Spice Island shortly after midday and entered Portsmouth Harbour at around 1 pm, horns blaring, ship’s company lining the flight deck, and a ceremonial 17-gun salute echoing across the water as she came home to HMNB Portsmouth.

Later in the afternoon, Norwegian frigate HNoMS Roald Amundsen completed the trio, arriving just after 3 pm to a warm welcome from both sides of the harbour before she prepares to continue her journey back to Norway.

Originally, all three ships were due back on Monday, but a rough weather forecast – with heavy winds expected in the Solent – pushed the return forward by a day. For local businesses, especially the Old Portsmouth Christmas market, that meant an unexpected Sunday boost in footfall as people combined ship-spotting with mulled wine and festive shopping.

Operation Highmast: Portsmouth’s flagship goes global

This wasn’t just any deployment. Operation Highmast has been described as the UK’s premier naval mission of 2025 – and Portsmouth has been at the heart of it.

Led by HMS Prince of Wales, the UK Carrier Strike Group 25 (CSG25) has spent eight months at sea, operating from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and deep into the Indo-Pacific. At its peak, the task group involved:

• Around 4,000 UK personnel across the Royal Navy, Army and RAF

• Roughly 2,500 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines, nearly 600 RAF personnel and 900 soldiers

• Fast jets from RAF 617 Squadron (The Dambusters) and 809 Naval Air Squadron, with up to 26 F-35B Lightning stealth fighters embarked at times

• A ring of escort ships including HMS Dauntless, HMS Richmond and HNoMS Roald Amundsen, plus support from Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers RFA Tideforce and RFA Tidespring, and Norwegian logistics ship HNoMS Maud

Across the deployment, the carrier group:

• Sailed tens of thousands of nautical miles – official figures range from more than 26,000 to over 40,000 nautical miles, roughly one-and-a-half times around the globe

• Worked with over 30 nations and integrated ships and aircraft from at least ten allied navies, including Australia, Japan, the United States, France, Italy, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Canada and New Zealand

• Took part in major exercises such as Talisman Sabre in northern Australia, complex carrier drills with US and Japanese forces, and high-end NATO training in the Mediterranean

In Asia, the deployment included high-profile visits to Busan, Tokyo, Singapore, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City and Manila. In Tokyo, HMS Prince of Wales hosted the Pacific Future Forum, bringing together ministers and military leaders to talk about security, tech and the shifting balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.

On the aviation side, the CSG’s F-35 jets flew thousands of sorties, including mock dogfights with Indian Air Force jets and carrier operations alongside Italian and Japanese aircraft carriers. Merlin and Wildcat helicopters, plus experimental uncrewed drones, pushed the boundaries of what the carrier can do – from anti-submarine warfare to moving supplies between ships without a human pilot.

There were powerful moments of remembrance, too. During the deployment, the modern HMS Prince of Wales paused over the wreck of the original HMS Prince of Wales in the South China Sea, holding a service for the crew lost during the Second World War – the first time the current ship has visited the site.

“Stronger for NATO than it departed”

The deployment wasn’t just about flying the flag; it was about proving that the UK’s carrier strike capability is fully ready for front-line operations under NATO. Commodore James Blackmore, Commander of the UK Carrier Strike Group, summed it up:

He said it had been a privilege to lead nearly 4,000 soldiers, sailors, aviators and marines who have sailed more than 40,000 nautical miles and worked with over 30 nations – and that the Strike Group has come home stronger for NATO than it departed.

During Operation Highmast, the group:

• Helped enforce UN sanctions on North Korea

• Supported NATO maritime security in the Mediterranean

• Provided a visible reminder that the UK still has a serious blue-water navy with a global reach

All of that is ultimately run from a home base on Portsea Island. Every time HMS Prince of Wales sails past the Round Tower or turns at the harbour mouth off Southsea, it’s a reminder that Portsmouth isn’t just a historic naval city – it’s a very current one.

What does today mean for Portsmouth?

For most people on the seafront, Sunday wasn’t about geopolitics; it was about people.

• Families waving homemade banners from the Round Tower and Clarence Pier

• Kids counting helicopters and jets on the flight deck

• Partners and parents waiting at HMNB Portsmouth for that first hug in eight months

The early return also meant one huge thing for service families: their loved ones are home in time for Christmas in Portsmouth to walk along Southsea beach in actual civvies, to grab a coffee in Old Portsmouth, or to join the crowds at Gunwharf Quays under the Spinnaker Tower instead of watching it through a porthole on the way out.

For the city, it’s another reminder of why Portsmouth is still known as the home of the Royal Navy. From local ship-spotters to small businesses near the base, these big naval moments ripple through the community, filling pubs, cafés and markets, and keeping the link between harbour and high seas very much alive.

As HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Dauntless and HNoMS Roald Amundsen settle alongside and the crew spill ashore, Portsmouth can claim a small part of this global deployment as its own. The ships may have sailed to Tokyo, Sydney and Singapore, but every mile started and finished between the Solent, Spice Island and Portsmouth Harbour’s historic walls – in a city built around boats, Navy life and the constant rhythm of ships going to sea and coming home again.