Several politicians, including senior Congress leaders Sunil Deshmukh, PC Sharma, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Mukesh Patel and others shared a photo of a naval ship on Navy Day.
The country celebrates Navy Day on 4 December to commemorate 'Operation Trident', the ground-breaking offensive attack by the Indian Navy in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.
However, we found the ship that is seen in the photo is not an Indian Navy ship as claimed but a Freedom-class littoral combat ship for the United States Navy, designed by aerospace company Lockheed Martin.
CLAIM
The photo is being shared by senior BJP-turned-Congress leader Sunil Deshmukh with the caption, "On #NavyDay, I salute the Indian Navy for protecting us & keeping us safe. Thank you for your selfless efforts & dedication! #NavyDay2021(sic)."
An archive link of the tweet can be seen here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
BJP Jammu and Kashmir (here), the youth wing of Biju Janata Dal (here), Congress leader and MLA PC Sharma (here), Gujarat state minister for Agriculture, Energy, and Petrochemicals Mukesh Patel (here), writer and ex-Armed forces officer Kulpreet Yadav (here) have also shared the photo.
Even in 2016 and 2017, the same photo was shared by the official Twitter page of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while state-broadcaster DD News had tweeted the same photo in 2019 to mark Navy Day.
WHAT WE FOUND
We conducted a reverse image search on the photograph and found it on the Flickr, an image hosting website, on the official profile of aerospace company Lockheed Martin.
The photo was taken on 3 August 2008 according to the EXIF data provided by Lockheed Martin on the website.
The caption read, "Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom (LCS 1), during speed tests at the Builder’s Sea Trials for the first-in-class coastal surface combatant."
Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom (LCS 1)
(Source: Flickr/Screenshot)
Next, we conducted an image and keyword search and found the photo on many websites.
The Daily Mail in an article titled 'The ultimate maritime fighting machine: US Navy puts powerful new warship through its paces for first time' published in 2015 had used the image of the US Naval ship.
Littoral combat ships.
(Source: Daily Mail/Screenshot)
We also found the image on the website of an American military paper called 'Stars and Stripes' published on 7 May 2009. Founded in 1861, the paper is a United States Department of Defense authorized news outlet.
Photo from 2009.
(Source: Stars and Stripes/Screenshot)
Clearly, a photo of a US Navy ship is being shared every year to wish on Indian Navy Day.
(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)
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