Unconquered

Abbreviated Warship Wednesday, as I am on the road at an industry event in New England. With that, how about a throwback to “old” England? Some 85 years ago this week, the 13,000-ton County-type heavy cruiser HMS Kent (54), seen in October 1941, fresh off refit and attached to the 1st Cruiser Squadron, Home Fleet, at Scapa Flow. By LT R G G Coote, Royal Navy official photographer, IWM A 6165 Ordered under the 1924-25 Estimates from HM Dockyard, Chatham, and commissioned in June 1928, Kent spent most of her pre-war career in the Far East and, ironically, even attended the Grand Coronation Review for the newly-installed Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo Bay. She looked much different, sporting a gleaming peacetime white-and-buff livery. British cruiser HMS Kent launched at Chatham dockyard on 16 March 1926. NH 60057 British cruiser HMS Kent, Manila Bay, 20 January 1931. U.S. Navy ONI file. NH 60061 With sisters Berwick, Cornwall, Cumberland, and Suffolk, 1938 Janes September 1939 found Kent as…