The report that H.M.S. Hawkins, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Henry Harwood, has arrived in Montevideo, will stir pleasant memories among Shanghailanders who remember this cruiser as perhaps the best-known British naval visitor to Shanghai, and who will undoubtedly feel proud that she is still in service on the scene of the greatest naval action of the present war. H.M.S. Hawkins was a visitor to Shanghai a good number of years ago, but she graced the British naval buoys more impressively than any other warship. On the great changes in naval design since the war, which ranged from the County class cruisers built on the lines of Empress liners, to the formidable but extremely ugly floating gun platforms like H.M.S. Nelson and Rodney, the layman is entitled to pass no opinion beyond the statement of the general impression made by appearance. In the case of Hawkins, the statement can be made that she looked like a warship and that counts for a lot in the esteem of the layman Trim and sleek, with lines suggestive of speed, alertness and capacity for action, she deeply endeared herself to those who saw her alongside the Bund or in other Chinese ports where service duties with the British China Fleet took her. Like the modern sea travellers' preference which induces shipbuilders to put funnels on ships even if they were mere ornaments and unnecessary because they complete the Picture of what a ship should appear, H.M.S. Hawkins had the looks of a warship. This, of course, does not mean that effectiveness was lacking. She should have been passed into the inglorious oblivion of the shipbreakers' yard some years ago, but re-armament necessities gave her another span of life and it is, to be sure that she li give account of herself when the time comes. The appearance of this veteran in active service happily coincides with the return of another veteran, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, former Commander-in-Chief of the China Fleet. Admiral Tyrwhitt i; one of the five Admirals of the Fleet restored from the retired list to the active list.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.