Coastlines 1/1250 CL-AMC001 HMS Rawalpindi, Armed Merchant Cruiser, 1939
HMS Rawalpindi is a 1/1250 scale, waterline model of the the 1925-built P&O liner as converted to an armed merchant cruiser at the outbreak of WW2. The model is cast in resin and painted in light grey overall by Coastlines Models, CL-AMC001.
On the 11th November 1939, Rawalpindi was patrolling to the south east of Iceland when she was unlucky to come accross a German warship. Captain Kenedy identified the ship as a battlecruiser and turned towards the warship to close the range. Kenedy radioed the sighting but was persuaded to change his opinion to the Pocket Battleship, Deutschland in the message and the Admiralty sent back up including a couple of cruisers and units of the Home Fleet were also sent to intercept. Captain Hoffmann in Scharnhorst approached to about 4 miles and tryied to persuade Captain Kenedy to surrender and abandon ship but received no reply. When the Gneisenau appeared on the other side of Rawalpindi, Kenedy gave the order to open fire and Rawalpindi fired first on Gneisenau and then on Scharnhorst. Scharnhorst replied immediately and hit the bridge of Rawalpindi killing the gunnery officer and most others on the bridge. Captain Kenedy had survived and gave orders for the guns to fire under local control but within 15 minutes all the 6in guns had been silenced and Captain Kenedy had been killed while organising a manual supply of shells for the guns. The order to abandon ship was given and three lifeboats were launched but one capsized. Scharnhorst ceased fire and launched boats to help with the rescue. At this point the forward magazine on Rawalpindi exploded and the ship broke in two and sank. There were about 40 survivors of which 3/4 were rescued by Scharnhorst who left the scene when the British cruisers appeared and the rest were picked up from an upturned lifeboat by the cruisers . The cruisers shadowed the German ships but the Home Fleet failed to intercept.