HMS Kent (1901)

HMS Kent was a Monmouth-class armoured cruiser of 9,800 tons displacement, of the British Royal Navy. She was 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 under the command of Arthur Bedford she participated in the Battle of the Falkland Islands and sank SMS Nürnberg. During the action her flags were damaged - new ones were presented to her on 8 December 1915 by the County Society of Kent.

From March 1915 she was again on the China Station. On 21 March 1915 she was present at the Battle of Mas a Tierra when SMS Dresden was scuttled at Cumberland Bay in the Juan Fernández Islands in the Pacific.^[1]

She returned to the United Kingdom in May 1915, and was reassigned to the Cape of Good Hope 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, RMS Kenilworth Castle collided with the destroyer HMS Rival while trying to avoid HMS Kent which was bearing down on her. ^{[2] [3]}

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, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.