SATURDAY 1st November will be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of HMS Monmouth in the Battle of Coronel.

To mark this centenary there will be a special commemoration service at 10.30am at St Mary's Church, Monmouth.

Although this memorial service takes place annually, to mark the centenary it has been expanded.

Dignitaries from both the Royal Navy and Monmouth have confirmed their attendence for the service.

Admiral Sir Kenneth Eaton, GBE, KCB and Lady Eaton will be present and it was the latter who launched the current HMS Monmouth in 1991.

Also attending the service are Commodore Toby Elliott OBE DL RN, Royal Naval Association Monmouth branch president and president of the Royal British Legion in Monmouth, Commodore James Miller CBE RN, Naval Regional Commander (Wales and Western England)and Commanding Officer of HMS Monmouth Lieutenant Commander Andrew Ainsley from the Royal Navy.

Local dignitaries include Lord Lieutenant` of Gwent Simon Boyle, Mayor of Monmouth Councillor Jane Gunter and Deputy Mayor Graham Pritchard who will be at the service along with six descendents and their families of some of those who lost their life on HMS Monmouth.

The Battle of Coronel took place off the coast of Chile on 1st November 1914. Commanded by Admiral Craddock, a small squadron of ships including HMS Monmouth took on the East Asia Squadron of the German fleet, commanded by Admiral von Spee.

The German ships were returning to Europe via Cape Horn and bombarding communicaiton outposts stretching down the Pacific coast en route.

Craddock's South Atlantic squadron came across what it thought was a solitary ship – a mistake also made by von Spee – and each commander decided to engage the other.

The opening rounds of the battle were fired at a range of about seven miles and initially the battle looked closely matched.

The German's had two armoured cruisers and three light cruisers in their group while Craddock's ships included three cruisers (of which HMS Monmouth was one), an armed merchant cruiser and an aging battleship in HMS Canopus.

With inferior firepower after HMS Canopus had become detached from the group, the British squadron then lost more ground to the German's as night fell and the weather got worse.

Silhouetted against the horizon, Craddock's ships were easier targets than von Spee's and high winds caused the British guns to be less effective as they were mounted lower down in the vessel and troubled by rolling waves.

After about an hour of conflict, HMS Monmouth was sunk with all hands, only shortly after Craddock had gone down with his ship, HMS Good Hope.

The two remaining British ships, HMS Glasgow and HMS Otranto, survived while von Spee's squadron was engaged off the Falkland Islands a short while later by a larger and more modern group of British ships and beaten.

There is a display at Monmouth Museum telling the story of all iterations of HMS Monmouth, including the sixth ship out of seven to bear the name – the one lost 100 years ago.

After the memorial service, there will be a film shown at the Savoy Theatre at 3pm.

This has been put together and remastered from a silent film made in 1927 reconstructing the battle.