The Strike Group, led by flagship aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, left Goa and Mumbai after a week-long visit promoting UK industry and strengthening ties between London and Delhi, to conclude Exercise Konkan, the regular test of the Commonwealth nations’ navies.

They added: "Geoff was a brilliant instructor and fighter pilot. "His professional legacy – excellence, selflessness, humility – lives on through the many RAF and Royal Navy fighter pilots he helped train who now defend our nation at home and abroad."

Royal Marines have crippled a high-speed drugs boat with a single, pinpoint sniper shot in one of the most dramatic counter-narcotics operations the Royal Navy has conducted in the Middle East.

Exercise Wildfire was held between September 29 and October 2 and focused on a Lightweight Multirole Missile, known as Martlet by the Royal Navy, blasted drones out of the sky and from the surface first off the Welsh coast, and later in the French Mediterranean, leaving behind “nothing but wreckage”.

A Plymouth-based ship has intercepted three small boats travelling across the Gulf of Oman carrying £35m worth of illegal narcotics, the Royal Navy has said. Commando snipers from Bickleigh barracks were used to disable the boats and the Navy said it was the first time they had been called on to use non-lethal force in the specific area.

Royal Marines took aim at the engine of a boat suspected of drug smuggling while flying in HMS Lancaster's Wildcat helicopter over the Gulf of Oman. £35