Have you ever wondered where the name of our Sea Cadet Corp comes from? This is the story of the Rawalpindi:

The “Rawalpindi”, in peacetime, was a P & O (Pacific & Orient) passenger liner of 17,000 tons, which sailed between Britain and the Far East.

Shortly after the hostilities in 1939, Rawalpindi was refitted for wartime duties. One of her two funnels was removed and she was given a coat of drab grey paint. Eight 6-inch guns gave her fire power of a 400 pound broadside. She was then an armed merchantman.

Captain Edward Kennedy, RN, was the 60 year old skipper of a crew of 280 men, many of whom came out of retirement to join the Merchant Navy when their country needed them.

On Thursday, November 23, 1939, Rawalpindi was on patrol in the North Atlantic. Along with her were 9 other ships who were on the lookout for German pocket battle ships who were in that area. These heavily armed ships were destroying allied shipping in these waters and greatly reducing the flow of supplies to Britain and Western Europe.

At 15:23, through the fog and icy rain squall, the Captain spotted a ship which he identified as the Deutschland. He immediately sent a signal to the Chain of Command with this information. However, it was the Scharnhorst, a sister ship to the pocket battle ship Deutschland. She was a 30 knot, 26,000 ton craft with 13 inch armour and twelve 9.5-inch guns capable of delivering an 8,000 pound broadside of steel and high explosives.

Scharnhorst signaled Rawalpindi to heave-to, but Captain Kennedy ordered the wheel to be put over hard and smoke floats dropped overboard to cover his withdrawal. The Scharnhorst again signaled Kennedy to heave-to and dropped an 11 inch shell just ahead of Rawalpindi. Again, Captain Kennedy refused to stop, though he realized the chances of escape were very slight. He turned into the fog hoping this would help him evade the enemy.

At that moment, a sleek grey ship appeared off the starboard bow of Rawalpindi. Hope for safety soared as Kennedy believed that his signal had been received and that the dimly visible ship was the cruiser HMS Newcastle coming to render assistance. The new arrival represented not safety, but a certain end to everything. It was the heavily armed Gneisenau, the sister ship of Scharnhorst. Escape was impossible. Kennedy decided rather than surrender he would fight them both. One of his forefathers had fought with Lord Nelson and it was not in Kennedy’s blood to surrender without a fight.

A salvo from Rawalpindi’s light guns struck Gneisenau amidships. Both pocket battle ships returned the fire. One salvo crashed through the super structure and boat deck and killed nearly everyone on bridge. The other salvo exploded in the main gunnery control room of Rawalpindi. Shells from the third salvo exploded in the engine room, destroying the dynamos and thus finishing the source of electricity for the ship. Ammunition hoists ceased to operate and shells had to be passed hand by hand to the remaining active guns.

Captain Kennedy left the mangled bridge and attempted to grope his way aft to drop smoke floats overboard in a desperate attempt to withdraw his burning ship with its exploding ammunition. He disappeared into the smoke and flames and died in the attempt.

The final salvo from Scharnhorst blew up the main magazine and almost tore Rawalpindi in two. The Germans then ceased firing and the survivors who could move lowered the two remaining life boats and slid down the falls into the boats before another explosion wrecked them, or they would be caught in the pull of the ship as she went under and they would drown with her.

240 men went down with Rawalpindi but the courage of Captain Kennedy in tackling such hopeless odds remains one of the outstanding naval feats of World War II. Rawalpindi, outclassed in speed and firepower by two larger, newer, and more heavily armed ships, too, has earned its rightful place of honour in the annals of the British Naval history.