Type 12 Rothesay Class Frigates
HMS Plymouth F126
30 years ago and what a wasted opportunity! Former Royal Navy Type 12 Rothesay Class Frigate HMS Plymouth F126 is seen berthed at Millbay Docks, Plymouth in her very early days of preservation on 1st September 1989. The last Type 12 Frigate in service with the RN, she was decommissioned on 28th April 1988. In an incredibly missed opportunity, Plymouth didn't offer her a permenant home and she moved firstly to Glasgow in 1990 and then Liverpool, before being sold in 2006 for scrap. What a museum she could have made alongside Plymouth's preserved nuclear submarine, HMS Courageous, as a lasting tribute to the Falklands War and Royal Navy in Plymouth, something to challenge Portsmouth and Chatham. A missed opportunity! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj2Q7HC_1mA
Sadly now scrapped, HMS Plymouth F126 was a former Type 12 Rothesay Class Frigate which served with the Royal Navy between 1961 and 1988, and in this slide show we see Plymouth as preserved at Birkenhead Docks on 13th September 2003. Built in the city she was named after, HMS Plymouth was built at Devonport Dockyard and was launched on 20th July 1959, being commissioned on 11th May 1961. A Falklands veteran, she was one of the first ships to arrive in the South Atlantic following the Argentine invasion, and together with HMS Antrim and HMS Brilliant recaptured the island of South Georgia on 28th April 1982, with the surrender being signed by Lieutenant Commander Alfredo Astiz in HMS Plymouth's wardroom. HMS Plymouth was the final Type 12 Frigate to survive and one of the final Falklands veterans, she was later controversially sold by Peel Ports to Leyel recycling in Turkey, before being tragically scrapped in August 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGQJtjmp4QA