A Balgownie navy commander who helped extract more than half a tonne of heroin from Middle Eastern drug-smuggling vessels as part of Operation Slipper says morale aboard HMAS Melbourne soared following the seizures, and after a decision was made to explode, rather than bring to shore, two boats being run by pirates.
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Finding drugs on Middle East missions is needle-in-a-haystack work that has yielded very few seizures for Australian naval forces in the past.
On January 26, Lieutenant Commander Andrew Hough receives a Commendation for Distinguished Service for his part in Melbourne's noteworthy 2013/14 deployment, which resulted in the destruction of 575kg of heroin off Tanzania in February 2014.
Melbourne also seized 24kg of methamphetamines and two tonnes of cannabis resin; and intercepted nine suspected pirates on two boats off the coast of Somalia.
As the ship's Executive Officer, Lieutenant Commander Hough considered what to do with the pirates, and their boats, once intercepted.
The boats would become a hazard to other ships if they were left at sea.
They could bring the boats to shore and try to prosecute the pirates, but they had been found with only bullet casings - not guns, which were thought to have been thrown overboard - so the case for prosecuting piracy could be weak.
Melbourne ultimately sent an explosives team to fill the boats with petrol, then shot them from the sky by helicopter until they exploded and sank.
The pirates were shipped back to Somalia, to explain to their superiors what had happened to the boats.
"We sent them back empty handed with their boats destroyed," Lieutenant Commander Hough said.
"The message to the rest of Somalia was, don't go out and do piracy because this will happen to you."
He attributes Melbourne's drug-finding success to an element of luck - "the ocean is a big place" - and improved search techniques.
Once the ships are stopped, crews spend 12 to 14 hours searching the vessels.