HMS Danae (F47) - Royal Navy Service

Royal Navy Service

In 1968, Danae became Gibraltar guardship and later joined HMY Britannia her in South America to perform Royal escort duties. Danae subsequently undertook a Beira Patrol, which was designed to prevent oil reaching landlocked Rhodesia via the then Portuguese colony of Mozambique, of which the port of Beira there gave its name to the operation. Danae deployed to the Far East, (visiting Australia, New Zealand & Japan) remaining in that region until the middle of 1969. She then undertook another Beira Patrol, (a routine duty for the Royal Navy until it was stopped in 1975) and finally returned to Devonport in October 1969 - having been deployed for 12 months.

In 1974, Danae deployed to the Far East via South Africa, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The following year, Danae performed a variety of duties while in the North Atlantic including oil-rig and fishery protection. She became a member (later flagship) of the NATO Standing Naval Force Atlantic, shadowing the Russian Navy's Ocean 75 exercise.

During the 1970s, Danae was one of the Leander-class frigates used as the fictional "HMS Hero" for the popular TV drama series Warship. The BBC's children's television programme "Blue Peter" did a broadcast of Warship being filmed at Plymouth Dockyard onboard Danae, with Lesley Judd in 1975. Six episodes of Warship were filmed aboard Danae around that time.

In 1977, Danae took part in the Royal Navy Fleet Review to celebrate HM the Queen's Silver Jubilee. Danae was placed between her sister-ship Euryalus and Antelope. Soon after, Danae commenced her modernisation program, which included the removal of her single 4.5-in twin turret which was replaced by the Exocet anti-ship missile system, giving Danae a powerful surface capability. The number of Sea Cat missiles she carried was also increased. The modernisation was completed in 1980.

In 1982, Danae was assigned to NATO's Standing Force North Atlantic and was later deployed to the South Atlantic in the tense aftermath of the Falklands War, where she would escort the carrier Illustrious. She left later that year. The following year, the ship returned to the South Atlantic to undertake a Falkland Islands patrol, at a time when that region was still very tense. In 1985, Danae made yet another journey to the South Atlantic. In the late 1980s the ship became ever more active with NATO's multi-national squadrons, though she was beginning to show signs of her increasing age. She was decommissioned in 1991 and sold to Ecuador, she was renamed Morán Valverde.