Former Oxford schoolboy Norman Kent, who became a Royal Navy chaplain, gave a vivid account of a sea battle in which he and his fellow sailors were involved.

He was on board HMS Kent, one of a fleet of British ships which clashed with German ships in the South Atlantic off the Falkland Islands on December 8, 1914.

The encounter ended in a decisive victory for the British, with all but two of the German vessels destroyed.

Mr Kent’s detailed description of the battle, a copy of which has been sent in by reader Alan Trinder, of Manor Road, Wantage, appeared in the City of Oxford High School for Boys magazine in 1915.

Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee, whose ships included armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, light cruisers Nurnberg, Dresden and Leipzig, and three auxiliaries, tried to raid the British supply base on the islands, thinking there was just one British ship there.

In fact, the British fleet was larger than his. It included battlecruisers HMS Invincible and Inflexible, armoured cruisers HMS Carnarvon, Cornwall and Kent, armed merchant cruiser HMS Macedonia and light cruisers HMS Bristol and Glasgow.

When they realised their mistake, the Germans fled and the British were soon in pursuit.

All except Dresden and the auxiliary Seydlitz were hunted down and sunk.

Mr Kent said they knew enemy ships were close by after intercepting a German wireless message.

“We arrived at the mouth of the harbour and saw five cruisers and knew that we were up against the whole German squadron.

“The Scharnhorst trained her guns on us, thereupon the Canopus, an old battleship moored inside the harbour out of sight, fired two 12in shells.

“At once, the whole German squadron turned tail and went off as hard as they knew how.”

The British gave chase, keeping slightly to port to avoid German mines.

“The chase continued throughout the morning and there were “tremendous cheers from our ship’s company” when Invincible and Inflexible opened fire.

“During the next one-and-a-half hours we were able to watch the duel between our two big ships and the two German big ships, and great was our joy when, about 3pm, we could see the smoke of only one German ship – the Scharnhorst had been sunk.

“In its way, this was the most exciting episode in a very eventful day and one which may not be seen again by anyone during the war, since we could see practically the whole duel between these four big ships.”

As the battle continued to rage, the Gneisenau was sunk at 6pm and the Leipzig an hour later, leaving what remained of the German fleet in disarray.

Norman Kent left Oxford High School in 1898, studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and became a priest in 1912.

He was awarded an OBE (Military) in 1919 and remained a chaplain with the Royal Navy until 1936. He was Rector at Highclere, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border, from 1938 to 1952. He died in October 1952.