magazines. Half-inch (12.7 mm) steel plating was added to protect her steering gear and her interior cabin bulkheads and glass ventilators were removed to reduce damage from splinters. Her furniture was removed to make room for the mess decks needed to feed large numbers of troops and sailors and an operating room and sickbay were installed amidships. Naval duties commence The work was completed on 13 August and she was commissioned as HMS Otranto the next day. The ship departed the UK on 17 August, the second armed merchant cruiser to leave England, with sealed orders that assigned her to Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock's West Indies Squadron in the South Atlantic. Otranto rendezvoused with the squadron on 27 August off the coast of Brazil where she patrolled the coast of South America between Chile and Montevideo, Uruguay, fruitlessly searching for German commerce raiders, together with the armoured cruisers , and the light cruiser . Otranto accompanied Cradock and three cruisers to patrol the Strait of Magellan and the Chilean coast for German ships in mid-September. They failed to locate any of the German ships, but Otranto intercepted messages that indicated that German warships were operating in the area. Cradock concentrated his ships on the southwestern coast of South America in mid-October to prevent the East Asia Squadron under Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee from breaking through into the South Atlantic. In mid-October Otranto struck a rock while departing Port Legunas, Chile, but a diver from Monmouth reported that it had done very little damage. Battle of Coronel On 27 October Cradock ordered Otranto to investigate Puerto Montt for signs of German ships and sent Glasgow to Coronel, Chile, to pick up any information from the Admiralty. The latter ship heard very strong radio transmission from the light cruiser four days later and Cradock brought his other ships north to rendezvous off Coronel. He ordered Glasgow to return to Coronel to transmit his appreciation of the situation to the Admiralty and collect any orders from them. The latter ship rejoined the squadron on the afternoon of 1 November and Cradock formed his ships into a line at intervals to search for any Germans. At this time, both sides thought that they were in pursuit of a single light cruiser as a German merchantman had reported Glasgows presence in Coronel to von Spee earlier in the day. Glasgow was the first