HMS Rawalpindi through Ludovic Kennedy's last visit

Kennedy recalls visiting his father aboard HMS Rawalpindi while dockyard crews converted the liner into an armed merchant cruiser. The older officer moved through the ship approving alterations, solving workmen's problems, and taking visible pride in the guns waiting on the jetty. A later letter mixed naval routine with paternal questions about training, pay, uniform costs, and debt. It was the son's final visit before Rawalpindi fought overwhelming German forces and was lost. The passage gives the ship's famous action a family perspective and shows how mobilisation restored a command to an officer whose career had been curtailed after the First World War.