At the time, his passion was firmly rooted in his career as a search and rescue pilot—a path he wasn’t ready to abandon. “He was happy to represent his grandmother… but he was still not ready to become a fully-fledged ribbon-cutting royal,” Nicholl noted.
It wasn’t until July 2017 that William officially became a full-time working royal, following his time as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance.
Before his role with the Air Ambulance, William began his military career in 2006 at Sandhurst. Though Queen Elizabeth reportedly supported his participation in frontline duty, the government deemed it too risky due to his position in the line of succession. Instead, he served with the RAF and the Royal Navy.
One of his most notable moments came in July 2008, when he was part of a Royal Navy operation that intercepted a speedboat attempting to smuggle 900kg of cocaine worth £40 million (now worth over £60 million). William had joined the HMS Iron Duke just four days earlier.
Deployed as part of a Lynx helicopter crew, William helped monitor suspect vessels off Barbados’ coast. The team, which included a sniper and pilot, identified a smuggling boat, and US Coast Guard officers boarded the vessel from the Iron Duke to make the arrests.
Commander Mark Newland said at the time, “To have had a direct impact on the flow of cocaine into Europe just four days after we arrived in theatre shows the benefit the Royal Navy can have.”
Long-Lasting Impact and Royal Banter
Royal biographer Penny Junor remarked that William’s time with the Navy involved “a lot of excitement and a lot of danger.” He enjoyed it so much that he extended his service with the Navy before returning to the RAF.
Years later, in a 2020 Remembrance Day video call with Leading Physical Trainer Damon Bell of HMS Montrose, William laughed when Bell referenced a recent £20 million drug bust—joking it didn’t match HMS Iron Duke’s record.
William replied with a grin: “I wasn’t going to bring that up, Damon, but I am glad it’s still being talked about.”
