UK aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth was deployed to the Pacific Ocean back in 2021, as part of her maiden deployment known as “CSG21“. During CSG21, the flagship of the Royal Navy called in Japan.
Sunak, was in Japan for the G7 summit in Hiroshima. He first stopped in at Yokosuka naval base, where he announced that Britain would double the number of British troops in the upcoming Vigilant Isles military exercise planned for later this year.
Sunak said that the carrier strike group will “work alongside Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and other regional partners to help defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”
The announcement of the 2025 carrier deployment came as Sunak and his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, visited JS Izumo and agreed on what is called the Hiroshima Accord, a wide-ranging pact covering economic, defense, security and technology collaboration.
HMS Queen Elizabeth returned to Portsmouth on December 9, 2021, after her maiden operational deployment which took the nation’s flagship to the Indo-Pacific and back. On a landmark seven-month mission – the most significant peacetime deployment by the Royal Navy in a generation – the aircraft carrier and her task group of eight supporting ships, a submarine, five air squadrons, and more than 3,700 personnel visited more than 40 countries.