hms "active" was the name ship of her class of three scout cruisers built for the royal navy in the 1910s. completed in 1911, she was briefly assigned to several different units until the ship became the flotilla leader of the 2nd destroyer flotilla (df) in 1914. when the first world war began in august of that year, the 2nd df was assigned to the grand fleet where their primary task was to protect the fleet from submarines.