Unconquered
Abbreviated Warship Wednesday, as I am on the road at an industry event in New England.
With that, how about a throwback to “old” England?
Some 85 years ago this week, the 13,000-ton County-type heavy cruiser HMS Kent (54), seen in October 1941, fresh off refit and attached to the 1st Cruiser Squadron, Home Fleet, at Scapa Flow.
By LT R G G Coote, Royal Navy official photographer, IWM A 6165
Ordered under the 1924-25 Estimates from HM Dockyard, Chatham, and commissioned in June 1928, Kent spent most of her pre-war career in the Far East and, ironically, even attended the Grand Coronation Review for the newly-installed Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo Bay.
She looked much different, sporting a gleaming peacetime white-and-buff livery.
British cruiser HMS Kent launched at Chatham dockyard on 16 March 1926. NH 60057
British cruiser HMS Kent, Manila Bay, 20 January 1931. U.S. Navy ONI file. NH 60061
With sisters Berwick, Cornwall, Cumberland, and Suffolk, 1938 Janes
September 1939 found Kent as flag of 5th Cruiser Squadron on the China Station, from where she immediately went out searching for German shipping.
By August 1940, she was transferred to the 3rd Cruiser Squadron for service with the Mediterranean Fleet and was promptly hit by an Italian torpedo bomber while bombarding Fort Capo d’Africa the next month.
Shipped back the long way around Africa via Alexandria, Aden, Mombasa, Simonstown, and Freetown, Kent spent eight months at Portsmouth for repairs and rebuilds, picking up new AAA guns and assorted radars in the process.
She then started clocking in on North Atlantic convoys, particularly on the dangerous Russian run, even carrying Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden on one trip to Murmansk. She ultimately rode shotgun on 44 convoys during the war, including those in the Atlantic (1942-43) and the Indian Ocean in 1940.
Kent spent 1944 in a series of anti-shipping ops off Norway and distant covering for the Normandy landings with the 1st Cruiser Squadron. Then, worn out, was nominated to be paid off in December 1944.
Laid up in March 1945, Kent was placed on the Disposal List in 1947 and sold to BISCO the next year, then towed to Troon for breaking up.
She received three battle honors for her WWII service (Atlantic 1940, Mediterranean 1940, and Arctic 1942-43).
Her motto was Invicta (Unconquered).