Warrant Officer 1 Paul Cook was born in Peterborough in 1982 and joined the Royal Navy in 1999 as an Operator Mechanic. At the end of training at HMS RALEIGH he was streamed Above Water Warfare and after training joined HMS OCEAN, diverted to the Civil War crisis in Sierra Leone (Op PALLISER). Promoted to Leading Hand in 2006 and predominately serving in Type 42 Destroyers, he embarked on a multitude of deployments which included counter narcotics in the Caribbean, NATO tasking on SNMG1/SNMG2, and air operations in the Broader Middle East. The latter concluded with the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, evacuating British Nationals from Beirut (Op HIGHBROW).
Promoted to Petty Officer in 2009, a new era of air defence capability had arrived. He was assigned to HMS DARING as a Tactical Picture Director, where he was heavily involved in the development of strategic use of T45 weapon systems and sensors. Deploying on US Naval Carrier Strike Group validation and interoperability exercise and the first T45 deployment East of Suez. Further promotion to Chief Petty Officer followed in 2012, and immediately returned to sea in HMS DRAGON as the Operations Room Manager, carrying out a period of Fleet Ready Escort activations and deploying on Atlantic Patrol Tasking in the South Atlantic. On completion, this naturally led to selection as a ‘FOSTie’, charged with delivering guidance, leadership and development to Action Information Organisation teams in RN and NATO platforms. Seeking a new challenge, he sought to broaden his wider understanding of Defence and was assigned to the Permanent Joint Headquarters J6 division in the Coalition Interoperability strategic development team.
Promoted to Warrant Officer 2 in 2021, he was appointed Group Warrant Officer at the Defence Diving School, a role which offered him his next challenge of providing Executive support to sailors. On formal selection to the Executive discipline and subsequent promotion to Warrant Officer First Class in 2023, he was appointed to HMS DAUNTLESS as Executive Warrant Officer. Deploying on Atlantic Patrol Tasking North in direct support to JIATF(S) and standby for HADR operations. Before returning to FOST to redistribute his Executive knowledge and experience back to the Fleet. He was very humbled to be awarded the Royal Navy Meritorious Service Medal in December 24.
He was appointed as MARCOM CSEL in June 2025. Married to Simone, they have one young child at a local school where they live in Cambridgeshire.