Empire Cruise

In 1923, the Royal Navy’s Special Service Squadron embarked on a ten-month empire tour to strengthen ties and assert British naval power.

In November 1923, the Royal Navy dispatched what was named the Special Service Squadron on a ten-month tour around the British Empire. Led by the battlecruiser HMS Hood—the pride of the Royal Navy and the largest ship in the world at the time—and comprising of the battlecruiser Renown and the First Light Cruiser Squadron, the role of the Special Service Squadron was to ‘show the flag’ during a public relations exercise and to strengthen ties across the empire. Much publicized, the cruise served as a subtle reminder that in the aftermath of the First World War, Britannia still ruled the waves. Empire Cruise charts the situation faced by Great Britain and the Royal Navy in the years immediately after the First World War, detailing the origins of the cruise before charting the course of the expedition.