Princess
On 21 October 1914 the Admiralty ordered the conversion of Kronprinzessin Cecilie into a dummy of the battleship HMS Ajax. On 1 November a contract was placed with Harland & Wolff in Belfast. She was given false superstructure and guns made of wood and canvas. She was ballasted to sit lower in the water, to create an illusion of greater length. The conversion was completed in March 1915. She was based at Loch Ewe in Ross-shire, from which she patrolled the North Atlantic. By October 1915 she had been paid off. At some point in 1915 the ship was renamed Princess.
Princess was then converted into a real armed merchant cruiser. Eight QF 6-inch naval guns were fitted as her primary armament. Two QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss guns provided anti-aircraft defence. She was completed on 9 January 1916. In March 1916 a prize court declared Princess to be a prize ship.
On 6 May 1916 Princess was commissioned at Belfast as HMS Princess, with the pennant number MI.57. She was sent to take part in the East African campaign. She left Belfast on 2 July, called at São Vicente, Ascension Island, and Saint Helena, and was in port at Simon's Town from 29 July until 9 August. She continued via Durban to Zanzibar, where she arrived on 22 August. The next day, she positioned herself off Dar es Salaam and opened fire on German positions ashore.
Princess patrolled the coast of German East Africa. On 13 September she and other Royal Navy ships landed troops at Mikindani, near the border with Moçambique. Princess sent seven boats ashore. The British captured the town without resistance.
Apart from a visit to Palma on 8–10 December 1916, just over the border in Moçambique, Princess continued to patrol the coast of German East Africa. On 22 February she sent troops ashore in six boats at Lindi. On 16 May 1917 she left Dar-es-Salaam for South Africa. She spent most of the time in Simonstown, plus shorter visits to Cape Town and Durban.
On 11 September she embarked troops at Durban. On 18 September she sent 200 troops ashore at Lindi, and on 26 September she landed further troops at Dar-es-Salaam. She stayed in Dar-es-Salaam until 28 September, when she embarked troops to repatriate to India. She stopped at Zanzibar until 1 October. She crossed the Indian Ocean to Bombay (now Mumbai), where she reached Alexandra Dock (now Indira Dock) on 11 October. She was decommissioned there on 13 October.[1] However, in January 1918 she was still on Royal Navy records, with her pennant number changed to M.91.
In 1919 Princess was registered in London. Her UK official number was 143933 and her code letters were JQWM. The Shipping Controller appointed Ellerman & Bucknall, a company in the Ellerman Lines group, to manage her. She was scrapped in May 1923.
