Northwood Headquarters

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Tri-service badge of the British Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.

Northwood Headquarters is a military headquarters facility of the British Armed Forces in Eastbury, Three Rivers, Hertfordshire, England. It is home to three command and control functions of the British armed forces and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO); Permanent Joint Headquarters, Commander in Chief Fleet and the NATO Regional Command, Allied Maritime Component Command Northwood.

As HQ of CINCFLEET the site was the controlling Headquarters for Operation CORPORATE, the Falklands War^[1]

The site falls under the authority of Chief of Joint Operations following a handover from CINCFLEET in 2002.

In 2006 major construction works commenced to improve the functionality of the site: the works, which involve the refurbishment or replacement of many of the key buildings for the Permanent Joint Headquarters, are being carried under under a Private Finance Initiative contract by Carillion.

1 Permanent Joint Headquarters
2 Royal Navy
3 NATO and the EU
4 Support units
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Permanent Joint Headquarters

Main article: Permanent Joint Headquarters

Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) is a tri-service organisation holds Operational Control of British armed forces joint military operation. Single service operations remain under the OPCON of the appropriate front line command. It is headed by the Chief of Joint Operations.

[edit] Royal Navy

Northwood, as HMS Warrior, was the location of the Royal Navy's Commander in Chief Fleet from April 1963,^[2] shortly after the transfer of the Home Fleet ashore in 1960.

Following the invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentinian forces in 1982, CINCFLEET was given command of the operation to recover the islands. The Operation was directed from Northwood with CINCFLEET staff augumented by personnel from corresponding Land Command and Strike Command headquarters.

In 2002, following a rationalisation, CINCFLEET moved the majority of the staff to Portsmouth, moving into HMS Excellent in 2004. Commander Operations remains with the current operations staff on the Northwood site and CINCFLEET retains an office in addition to the Portsmouth location.

Commander Operations is also commander of the corresponding NATO regional HQ.

[edit] NATO and the EU

NATO Regional Command, Allied Maritime Component Command Northwood, an element of Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum, is based in the site. Commander AMCCN is CINCFLEET Commander Operations.

AMCCN provides the Northern Maritime command element of AJFCB to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe

A headquarters structure is available for the command of European Union military operation. Personnel to support this structure would be seconded from existing NATO and national posts in the site, augumented from elsewhere as required.