Rear Admiral Suraj Berry takes over command of Eastern Fleet at Visakhapatnam ceremony

Visakhapatnam: Rear Admiral Suraj Berry, NM, VSM, on Saturday took over as the Command of the Eastern Fleet, the Sword Arm of the Eastern Naval Command, from Rear Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi, AVSM, NM, at a ceremony at the Naval Base in Visakhapatnam. Rear Admiral Berry was commissioned on 1 January, 1987, and is a specialist in gunnery and missile warfare. His sea commands include the missile vessel INS Nirbhik, missile corvette INS Karmuk, stealth frigate INS Talwar and aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, of which he was the commissioning commanding officer. [caption id=“attachment_6358841” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Rear Admiral Suraj Berry takes over command of the Eastern Fleet. ANI[/caption] His staff and operational appointments include those as the operations officer of the Mobile Missile Coastal Battery, fleet gunnery officer of the Western Fleet, defence adviser to the Indian High Commissioner of Sri Lanka and Maldives, director at the Directorate of Staff Requirements and naval assistant to the Chief of Naval Staff and principal director strategy, concepts and transformation, at the Naval Headquarters. Rear Admiral Berry was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal (meritorious service medal) in 2006 for services during the tsunami relief operations in Sri Lanka and Maldives and the Nau Sena Medal (navy medal) in 2015 for devotion to duty. He was elevated to the flag rank in October 2016 and was the assistant chief of personnel for human resource development prior to taking over command of the Eastern Fleet. Over the past 14 and a half months, the Eastern Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi, undertook various operational missions, including the maiden edition of a multilateral exercise at sea off Port Blair as part of MILAN-18 and operational demonstrations as part of Defence Expo 18 off the cast of Chennai. A task force of the Eastern Fleet under the flag officer was also deployed to South East Asia and the Western Pacific, including the first visit by Indian Navy ships to Guam for Malabar-19. The Eastern Fleet under him also participated in various bilateral exercises, most notable being INDRA-18 with the Russian Federation Navy, JIMEX-18 with the Japanese Navy and the 25th edition of SIMBEX with the Republic of Singapore Navy. Rear Admiral Tripathi has been placed in the select list for promotion to the post of vice admiral and is headed to New Delhi as the assistant director-general of Project Seabird.