Captain R. Edward Phillips

Head of Carrier Strike, Force Generation Directorate Royal Navy

Ed Phillips joined the Royal Navy as a Midshipman following his education in Scotland. After initial training at Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth and in the frigate HMS CHATHAM, he completed fast jet flying training and was awarded his pilots’ wings. He flew the Sea Harrier FA2 fighter with 899 and 801 Naval Air Squadrons (NAS), the ground-attack Harrier GR7 and GR9 with 800 NAS, and was a Department Head on exchange with the US Navy, flying the F/A-18E Super Hornet. He is experienced in both Short Take-Off Vertical Landing and catapult and arrester gear carrier operations, embarked in HM Ships INVINCIBLE and ILLUSTRIOUS and the American carriers USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT and JOHN C. STENNIS. He completed two Harrier combat tours on Op HERRICK in Afghanistan. He was a Harrier Landing Signals Officer and Electronic Warfare Instructor and was the Senior British Officer for the US Navy Pacific Fleet F/A-18 programme. Sea tours have included service in the patrol vessel HMS MERSEY, the frigate HMS ST ALBANS, and the destroyers HMS DRAGON (for her maiden Gulf deployment) and HMS DEFENDER. On exchange with the Commander of French Maritime Forces (COMFRMARFOR), he was the Strike Operations Officer and Deputy Head of Air Operations in the French aircraft carrier CHARLES DE GAULLE during deployments to the Mediterranean and Atlantic, and on the Staff of the UK Carrier Strike Group. His sea time in Nimitz-class carriers included a seven-month Western Pacific deployment, which included the longest continuous US Navy patrol in the South China Sea since the Vietnam War. He is a Principal Warfare Officer (Aviation). Between 2019 and 2021, Ed Phillips commanded HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH’s Air Department as the carrier’s Commander Air, responsible for the safe conduct and execution of all flying. This tour included the 2021 Op FORTIS deployment to Japan and back, with the largest air wing embarked in a British carrier since the 1980s and including squadrons of both British and United States Marine Corps F-35Bs. He has held staff appointments at various levels. As well as his two battle-staff tours, he has served in Navy Command Headquarters on the Queen Elizabeth Class and F-35 Lightning programmes, the Cabinet Office, and in the Ministry of Defence as Assistant Head of Future Commitments. He is currently the Royal Navy’s Head of Carrier Strike, responsible for the coherence of all UK Carrier Strike activity. He has completed the Intermediate Command and Staff Course (Maritime) at Shrivenham and is a graduate of the United States Naval War College.