HMS Kent (1901)

HMS "Kent" was a "Monmouth"-class armoured cruiser of 9,800 tons displacement, of the British Royal Navy. Launched on 6 March 1901, with her heaviest guns being 6 inch quick-firers. She served on the China Station between 1906 and 1913.

On the outbreak of the First World War she was re-commissioned and sent to the Falkland Islands where she participated in the Battle of the Falkland Islands and sank SMS "Nurnberg". During the action her flags were damaged - new ones were presented to her on December 8th 1915 by the County Society of Kent. It is said that in an attempt to catch the "Nurnberg" to avenge the loss of their sister ship "Monmouth", the ship's complement threw everything that could burn into the boilers to help close the range.

From March 1915 she was again on the China Station. On March 21st 1915 she sank the German cruiser SMS "Dresden" off the Juan Fernández Islands in the Pacific. [ [http://www.whitstablescene.co.uk/1915.htm 1915 ] ]

She returned to the United Kingdom in May 1915, and was redesignated to the Cape Station in 1916. In June 1918 she was transferred to English Channel convoy escort duty. On the 4 June while she and five destroyers were escorting "RMS Durham Castle" and "Kenilworth Castle", two Union-Castle Line steamers from South Africa, the "RMS Kenilworth Castle" collided with the destroyer HMS Rival while trying to avoid the "HMS Kent" which was bearing down on her. [http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol054kc.html The Kenilworth Castle Incident] [http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/unioncastle2.html UNION CASTLE LINE]

In July 1918 she returned to the China Station. She was then sent to Vladivostok in January 1919 to support American and Japanese forces in action against the Bolshevik Red Army.

She was sold for scrap and broken up in June 1920.

References

*Colledge