Hull#

Name

Built

Service

Owner

F ?

Rawalpindi

1925

1939

P. & O. Steam Navigation Co Ltd, London

On 26 Aug 1939 the passenger ship Rawalpindi of the P. & O. Steam Navigation Co Ltd, London was requisitioned by the Admiralty and converted to an armed merchant cruiser.

19 Oct, 1939; HMS Rawalpindi intercepts the German merchant Gonzenheim (4574 BRT) in the Northern part of Denmark Strait. However before the ship can be captured she is scuttled by her own crew. Crew sailed to a scottish port and interned in Camp "9", England.

23 Nov 1939; the HMS Rawalpindi (Capt E.C. Kennedy, R.N.) on Northern Patrol was shelled and sunk by the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst southeast of Iceland in the Iceland-Faroe passage. 275 dead and 37 survivors. The battlecruiser had tried to break out into the Atlantic together with the sistership Gneisenau. The ships returned to Germany to avoid the now searching warships of the British Home Fleet.