As lmgaylard has confirmed, there has been much valuable inter-service cooperation. PJHQ is represented on the ground and a second C-17 has flown in. Daring's Lynx has also shown her worth:
Originally Posted by RN website 19 Nov 2013
Ahead of HMS Daring sailing in and RAF C17 transporters flying out, a specialist team from the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters arrived to co-ordinate Britain’s military relief effort, ensuring the right aid goes to the right place...
Cdre Clive Walker, the Royal Navy logistician in charge of the tri-Service disaster relief task force, says the UK response is already making a difference on the ground – and has been extremely well received both by the people affected and by the islands’ leaders. The destroyer HMS Daring has been focusing her efforts around Guintacan Island, about 80 miles west of the badly-affected city of Tacloban, while the aid brought in by the RAF’s giant C17 transporters has been directed towards the latter city and environs.
“The two RAF C17s have been really well received – particularly the first one which flew in with the heavy engineering plant: tractors, dump trucks and a crane,” said Cdre Walker. “They’ve been needed close to the city of Tacloban which was badly affected, opening up the roads so aid can be brought in. “It’s a simple mantra: more roads means more aid which means less suffering.”
As for Daring, which broke off exercises in the South China Sea and dashed east, her Lynx helicopter proved key in the first stages of her response. “We’ve been very lucky to be joined by Daring – and her Lynx especially, carrying out surveys of the more remote areas,” said Cdre Walker...
As this photo on the MOD website (
link) shows, it has been a case of 'all hands to the pumps' in more ways than one:
A work party from HMS Daring loads humanitarian stores onto a barge in Cebu
[Picture: Petty Officer (Photographer) Paul A'Barrow, Crown copyright]