At a military base outside Portsmouth, England, a 24-hour service monitors the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and part of the Indian Ocean, responding to distress calls. When a ship comes under fire in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the first places its distress call is likely to be heard is thousands of miles away, on a military base outside Portsmouth, on the south coast of Britain. “The most distressing events are o... [1885 chars]