HMS Rawalpindi

Scale model of HMS Rawalpindi
History
Great Britain
Name:	SS Rawalpindi
Namesake:	The city of Rawalpindi (Pakistan)
Owner:	Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company
Port of registry:	United Kingdom
Route:	London-Bombay passenger and mail service
Builder:	Harland and Wolff, Greenock
Yard number:	660
Laid down:	1923
Launched:	26 March 1925
Completed:	3 September 1925
Homeport:	London
Fate:	Requisitioned by Royal Navy, 24 August 1939
Name:	HMS Rawalpindi
Acquired:	24 August 1939
Commissioned:	19 September 1939
Out of service:	23 November 1939
Fate:	Sunk 23 November 1939, Iceland Gap
General characteristics
Type:	Armed merchant cruiser
Tonnage:	16,697 grt
Length:	548 ft (167 m)
Beam:	69 ft (21 m)
Draught:	29 ft 6 in (8.99 m)
Propulsion:	2 x quadruple expansion four cylinder steam engines
Speed:	15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Complement:	276
Armament:	8 × BL 6 in (150 mm) Mk VII guns, 2 × QF 3 in (76 mm) 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns

HMS Rawalpindi was a British armed merchant cruiser (a converted passenger ship intended to raid and sink enemy merchant shipping) that was sunk in a surface action against the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the first months of the Second World War.

The ship started life as the 16,695 registered tons Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) ocean liner SS Rawalpindi , built by Harland and Wolff. She was launched on 26 March 1925 by Lady Birkenhead, the wife of F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, and joined the P&O fleet in September of the same year. She was named after the city of Rawalpindi, a British garrison town in what is now Pakistan. She could carry 307 First Class and 288 Second Class passengers, and was employed on the London to Bombay service.

Rawalpindi was requisitioned by the Admiralty on 26 August 1939 and converted into an armed merchant cruiser by the addition of eight elderly 6 in (150 mm) guns and two 3 in (76 mm) guns. She was set to work from October 1939 in the Northern Patrol covering the area around Iceland. On 19 October in the Denmark Strait, Rawalpindi intercepted the German tanker Gonzenheim (4,574 grt), which had left Buenos Aires on 14 September. The tanker was scuttled by her crew before a boarding party could get on board.