After five days of ship tours and promoting the work of naval officers, the celebration of troops came to an end Sunday with a sail.
“The parade of ships is part of Fleet Week and so this is where all of the ships that are going to be taking part of Cutlass Fury, a big exercise for Canadian Navy Readiness,” said Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, Commander with the Royal Canadian Navy.
Halifax member of parliament and co-organizer of Fleet Week, Andy Filmore, said the goal of the event was to acknowledge the members and their service.
“The impact the Navy has on Halifax, we don’t really acknowledge that in the way we should. We don’t celebrate it the way other cities do. For example, New York has been having a Fleet Week going back 35 years and so has San Francisco,” Fillmore said.
Several hundreds of people gathered to watch along the dock as each ship sailed off. This included five Canadian naval ships and U.S. ships.
Those onboard received a salute from the admiral and a wave from fellow sailors.
“The energy that we felt from start to finish everywhere in the city of Halifax, we were able to achieve our objective of showcasing our navy to Canadians, to local population, and to tourists,” said Rear-Admiral Josee Kurtz, Commander of Maritimes Forces Atlantic.
Along with interacting with the public on what the navy does, a big goal for fleet week was recruitment.
Since the pandemic, recruitment and retention has been difficult.
“We’ve seen a recovery in terms of the number of applicants that are coming forward, but we need over 6,000 people to join the Canadian Armed Forces this year and so we’re watching the numbers quite closely and hope that we get to that target,” said Topshee.
The ships passing through Halifax waterfront left to begin the at-sea phase of Exercise Cutlass Fury 2023.
It is a multi-threat warfare exercise that is Canadian-led and multinational. It will test Canadian sailors, soldiers, aviators, and allied-partners’ ability to execute anti-submarine, surface and air warfare.
Maritime Forces Atlantic said the exercise is structured to help strengthen and showcase their ability to conduct operations across air, land and sea.
Over the last five days, the city opened its arms to 1,400 sailors from four different countries. Filmore said the goal is to continue this event over the coming years. “We are going to think and identify all the things we learned and part of that will be identifying if we do this every year or every two years.”
