HMS Cressy was a armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy around 1900. Upon completion she was assigned to the China Station. In 1907 she was transferred to the North America and West Indies Station before being placed in reserve in 1909. Recommissioned at the start of World War I, she played a minor role in the Battle of Heligoland Bight a few weeks after the beginning of the war. Cressy and two of her sister ships were torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-9 on 22 September 1914 with the loss of 560 of her crew. Design and description Cressy was designed to displace . The ship had an overall length of , a beam of and a deep draught of . She was powered by two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which produced a total of and gave a maximum speed of . The engines were powered by 30 Belleville boilers. On her sea trials, Cressy only reached , the slowest performance of any of her class. She carried a maximum of of coal and her complement ranged from 725 to 760 officers and ratings. Her main armament consisted of two breech-loading (BL) Mk X guns in single gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. They fired shells to a range of . Her secondary armament of twelve BL 6-inch Mk VII guns was arranged in casemates amidships. Eight of these were mounted on the main deck and were only usable in calm weather. They had a maximum range of approximately with their shells. A dozen quick-firing (QF) 12-pounder 12-cwt guns were fitted for defence against torpedo boats, eight on casemates on the upper deck and four in the superstructure. The ship also carried three 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns and two submerged torpedo tubes. The ship's waterline armour belt had a maximum thickness of and was closed off by transverse bulkheads. The armour of the gun turrets and their barbettes was 6 inches thick while the casemate armour was 5 inches thick. The protective deck armour ranged in thickness from and the conning tower was protected by of armour. Service history Cressy, named after the 1346 Battle of Crécy, was laid down by Fairfield Shipbuilding at their shipyard in Govan, Scotland on 12 October 1898 and launched on 4 December 1899. After finishing her sea trials she passed into the fleet reserve