HMS Raleigh

HMS Raleigh was established in Jan 1940 to provide basic training for RN recruits, on a sloping site adjacent to St Johns Lake, Millbrook, near Torpoint. By 1959 it had become the primary entry point for all non-officer recruits.

The hardstanding must have had one its busiest days on 13 May 1982, when 20 Wessex HU.5 of newly formed 847 Sq arrived in three sections, prior to joining mv Atlantic Causeway in Plymouth Sound later that day for her departure to the South Atlantic .

With the growing pressure on budgets, like HMS Sultan in Gosport, HMS Raleigh has grown through centralisation of training activities. After an extensive rebuilding programme throughout the 1970s, WRNS training moved in from HMS Dauntless, followed in 1983 by the Supply School relocation from HMS Pembroke and the assumption of basic training for the artificer apprentices at adjacent HMS Fisgard. Further consolidation followed with the transfer of the Submarine School from Gosport in 2000 and the Military Training school in 2001 from the ex gunnery school at HMS Cambridge, to the east of Plymouth. In 2008 and 2009 work commenced in stages on 4 new accommodation blocks and by Jun 2010 this had been completed.

Against a background of the Oct 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, with a smaller Royal Navy to accept its output, the annual intake has halved to around 1100 in 2011. With a similar knock on to officer training at BRNC Dartmouth the UK MoD has already begun denying that the two sites will merge.

A land based installation of the Rolls Royce Heavy Replenishment at Sea (HRAS) system for rapid dry store transfer to the Queen Elizabeth class carriers has been operating since 2014, to train personnel and prove procedures.