Andromeda becomes a radio experiment and training establishment

Andromeda served in the Mediterranean, joined the royal tour, operated under Christopher Cradock, and later became a China Station flagship. Her visits to Italian and Spanish ports and a meeting with King Victor Emmanuel show the diplomatic routine that accompanied station duty. In reserve at Chatham, Lieutenant Quentin Crawford received Admiralty permission to use her radio equipment and power supply for experimental broadcasts of speech and music to the fleet. The ship then became a boys' training vessel under the names Powerful II and Impregnable II. Renamed Defiance, she later joined the torpedo school and survived until 1956. That long afterlife shows how a large cruiser hull could remain useful long after its front-line fighting value had faded.