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Lieutenant General Sir Edward Smyth-Osbourne, Commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, hosted His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales during his visit to exercise Loyal Leda 2020.

FAIRFORD, Gloucestershire, U.K. - His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales visited multinational NATO troops from 21 nations serving at the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, in Gloucester and units supporting exercise Loyal Leda 2020. Troops provided an overview of the exercise, which will validate the U.K.’s largest Land contribution to NATO, and some of the new capabilities and technology being developed and tested by the headquarters. 

The U.K. element of this Command Post Exercise, with over 1,000 personnel dispersed across a number of sites in Gloucestershire, will certify the headquarters as NATO’s first War Fighting Corps held at readiness since the Cold War. This means the headquarters is ready to deploy at short-notice on large scale operations up to and including high intensity warfare until January 2022. This would see the headquarters command multinational Divisions and up to 120,000 troops across the full spectrum of operations, including cyber and space domains.

As a strong supporter of the Armed Services, The Prince of Wales regularly visits Commonwealth troops and his U.K. Regiments during training or on operations. During this visit His Royal Highness met Commonwealth soldiers from the 1st Canadian Division, the ‘Red Devils’ and Gurkhas from the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Support Battalion. His Royal Highness helps maintain the Royal Family’s strong connection to the Commonwealth and is the Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Gurkha Rifles.