ACTIVE SERVICE
From flying helicopters to commanding a vessel, Charles enjoyed a varied forces career
Charles (inset left in 1971 at Dartmouth naval college with its head, Captain Gordon Tait, in 1971) served on HMS Norfolk for seven months, showing his mother the Queen around the destroyer
(below left) in July 1972
The dashing young man in naval uniform was following in a wellestablished family tradition: the then Prince of Wales’s father, grandfather and two greatgrandfathers had all served in the Royal Navy.
So it seemed natural that the 23-year-old should choose the senior service for life in uniform.
However, his six-year term of active service began a little later than other members of the royal family, as he chose to finish his education at Cambridge first.
It was suggested that this was a delaying tactic from a reluctant recruit, who had to be persuaded by his father to join. But Prince Charles’s enthusiasm proved otherwise. Some of his inspiration for joining up may well have come from his great-uncle Earl Mountbatten of Burma, a confidant of Charles who had a long and distinguished naval career, serving among other positions as an admiral of the fleet as well as the last Viceroy of India.