Eighty years ago, the Royal Navy shows its capacity for self-immolation, Chamberlain offers a proto-EU as a war-aim and the Soviets attack Finland

The Royal Navy fought one of the sanguinary and futile actions which are the stuff of legend, albeit legend that glorifies pointless self-immolation. The Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi was an oldish P&O liner capable of 15 knots, which had been requisitioned by the navy and kitted out with elderly 6 inch guns and manned by equally elderly naval reservists. She had the bad fortune to encounter the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , heavily armoured modern battleships capable of 31 knots and armed with 11 inch guns, even their secondary armament of 5.9 inch guns was superior to Rawalpindi’s . The Germans called on the British ship to surrender but her captain, 60 year old Edward Kennedy, chose to fight in the full knowledge that his ship was doomed. He did not seem to have considered scuttling her and letting the crew take to the boats. Rawalpindi scored one hit on Scharnhorst which caused minor damage. Kennedy and over 200 of his crew were killed when she was sunk; only fift