In the mid-1990s, the Royal Navy needed a replacement for its obsolete Fearless- class DropShip . In 1996, the Ministry of Defense awarded the defense company BAE Systems the contract for the construction of two larger and more powerful ships. The Bulwark was laid down in January 2000 and was launched in November 2001. It was finally officially put into service on December 10, 2004. In July of the following year she took part in the International Fleet Review in the Solent . Her first major deployment followed in early 2006 when she was deployed in the Horn of Africa as part of Operation Enduring Freedom . She then took on the role of the flagship of the Royal Navy in the Persian Gulf for three months . In July 2006, while she was on her way back to England, the Lebanon War broke out between Israel and Lebanon. As part of Operation Highbrow, she evacuated 1,300 British citizens from Beirut on July 20 .
In 2009 the Bulwark was the flagship of the multinational exercise Taurus . The ship is to change from the current readiness status High Readiness 2016 to the reserve fleet and remain in an "Extended Readiness" readiness.
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