Originally Posted by Philip Dunne
...it will be up to the Royal Navy to find the budget to be able to crew two vessels for rotating deployment. It’s an operating expense rather than a capital expense. The issue is not to have two carriers on station at one time but to enable a continuous presence...."
O tempora o mores! No one, least of all the First Sea Lord, underestimates the huge challenge of finding nearly 700 individually specialised personnel (and their reliefs plus airgroup) to man the QEC out of a Royal Navy reduced to just 23,000 personnel in dark blue. It certainly puts some losses of the Second World War into perspective: 1,415 in HMS Hood; 861 in HMS Barham; 833 in HMS Royal Oak; 766 in HMS Neptune; 724 in HMS Wakeful; 722 in HMS Gloucester; 518 in HMS Courageous; 516 in HMS Avenger; 513 in HMS Repulse; 469 in HMS Galatea; 464 in HMS Charybdis; 419 in HMS Dunedin; 327 in HMS Prince of Wales; etc.