page_title: HMS Lion (1910)
section_title: Battle of Jutland
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Lion (1910) / Service / World War I / Battle of Jutland
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS Queen Mary blowing up at the Battle of Jutland 1916. Queen Mary is surrounded by the explosion and smoke. To the left is HMS Lion, surrounded by waterspouts from enemy shots falling short.
context_page_description: HMS Lion was a battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy in the 1910s. She was the lead ship of her class, which were nicknamed the "Splendid Cats". They were significant improvements over their predecessors of the Indefatigable class in terms of speed, armament and armour. This was in response to the first German battlecruisers, the Moltke class, which were very much larger and more powerful than the first British battlecruisers, the Invincible class.
  Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers throughout World War I, except when she was being refitted or under repair. She sank the German light cruiser Cöln during the Battle of Heligoland Bight and served as Vice-Admiral Beatty's flagship at the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland. She was so badly damaged at the first of these battles that she had to be towed back to port and was under repair for more than two months. During the Battle of Jutland she suffered a serious propellant fire that could have destroyed the ship had it not been for the bravery of Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey, the turret commander, who posthumously received the Victoria Cross for having ordered the magazine flooded.
context_section_description: On 31 May 1916 Lion was the flagship of Admiral Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet which had put to sea to intercept a sortie by the High Seas Fleet into the North Sea. The British were able to decode the German radio messages and left their bases before the Germans put to sea. Hipper's battlecruisers spotted the Battlecruiser Fleet to their west at 03:20, but Beatty's ships did not spot the Germans to their east until 03:30. Almost immediately afterwards, at 03:32, he ordered a course change to east-south-east to position himself astride the Germans' line of retreat and called his ships' crews to action stations. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard, away from the British, to assume a south-easterly course, and reduced speed to 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) to allow three light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group to catch up. With this turn Hipper was falling back on the High Seas Fleet, then about 60 miles (97 km) behind him. Around this time Beatty altered course to the east as it was quickly apparent that he was still too far north to cut off Hipper.
  This began what was to be called the 'Run to the South' as Beatty changed course to steer east-south-east at 03:45, paralleling Hipper's course, now that the range closed to under 18,000 yards (16,000 m). The Germans opened fire first at 03:48, followed almost immediately afterwards by the British. The British ships were still in the process of making their turn as only the two leading ships, Lion and Princess Royal, had steadied on their course when the Germans opened fire. The German fire was accurate from the beginning, but the British overestimated the range as the German ships blended into the haze. Lion, as the leading British ship, engaged Lützow, her opposite number in the German formation. Lützow's fire was very accurate, and Lion was hit twice within three minutes of the Germans' opening fire. By 03:54 the range was down to 12,900 yards (11,800 m), and Beatty ordered a course change two points to starboard to open up the range at 03:57. Lion scored her first hit on Lützow two minutes later, but Lützow returned the favour at 04:00 when one of her 305 mm shells hit 'Q' turret at a range of 16,500 yards (15,100 m). The shell penetrated the joint between the nine-inch turret faceplate and the 3.5-inch roof and detonated over the centre of the left-hand gun. It blew the front roof plate and the centre faceplate off the turret, killed or wounded everyone in the turret, and started a fire that smouldered, despite efforts to put it out that had been thought to have been successful. Accounts of subsequent events differ, but the magazine doors had been closed and the magazine flooded when the smouldering fire ignited the eight full propellant charges in the turret working room at 04:28. They burned violently, with the flames reaching as high as the masthead, and killed most of the magazine and shell room crews still in the lower part of the mounting. The gas pressure severely buckled the magazine doors, and the magazine would probably have exploded if it had not already been flooded. Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey, the mortally wounded turret commander, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for having ordered the magazine flooded.
  At 04:11 Lion observed the track of a torpedo fired by Moltke pass astern, but it was thought that the torpedo was fired by a U-boat on the disengaged side. This was confirmed when the destroyer Landrail reported having spotted a periscope before the torpedo tracks were seen. The range had grown too far for accurate shooting so Beatty altered course four points to port to close the range again between 04:12 and 04:15. This resulted in Lion hitting Lützow again at 04:14, but Lützow hit Lion several times in return shortly afterwards. The smoke and haze from these hits caused Lützow to lose sight of Lion, and she switched her fire to Queen Mary at 04:16. By 04:25 the range was down to 14,400 yards (13,200 m), and Beatty turned two points to starboard to open the range again. However, it was too late for Queen Mary, which was hit multiple 
caption: HMS Lion surrounded by waterspouts from enemy gunfire as HMS Queen Mary explodes
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