page_title: Lion-class battlecruiser
section_title: Battle of Jutland
hierarchical_section_title: Lion-class battlecruiser / 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: The Lion class were a pair of battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy before World War I. Nicknamed the "Splendid Cats", the ships were a significant improvement over their predecessors of the Indefatigable class in terms of speed, armament and armour. These improvements were in response to the German battlecruisers of the Moltke class, which were in turn larger and more powerful than the first British battlecruisers of the Invincible class.
  Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers throughout World War I. She sank the German light cruiser Cöln during the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914 and participated in the battles of Dogger Bank in 1915 and Jutland the following year. She was so badly damaged at the Battle of Dogger Bank that she had to be towed back to port. During the Battle of Jutland, Lion suffered a serious cordite fire that could have destroyed the ship.
  Princess Royal also participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight and was then sent south to the Caribbean to intercept the German East Asia Squadron in case they used the Panama Canal.
context_section_description: On 31 May 1916, Princess Royal was the flagship of the 1st BCS, under the command of Rear-Admiral Osmond Brock. The squadron had put to sea with the rest of the Battlecruiser Fleet, led by Beatty in Lion, to intercept a sortie by the High Seas Fleet into the North Sea. Hipper's battlecruisers spotted the British ships to their west by mid-afternoon and turned about to fall back on the German battleships, then about 60 miles (97 km) behind him. Beatty turned to cut him off, but was out of position to do that and had to settle for a pursuit. This began what was to be called the "Run to the South" as Beatty changed course to steer east south-east at 15:45, paralleling Hipper's course. The Germans opened fire first, three minutes later, followed almost immediately afterward by the British. The sisters were in the lead and were engaged by their opposite numbers, the battlecruisers, Lützow and Derfflinger. Fire from both German ships was very accurate, and both Lion and Princess Royal were hit twice within three minutes of the Germans' opening fire. Lion scored her first hit on Lützow two minutes later, but one of Lützow's 305 mm (12 in) shells hit 'Q' turret at 16:00. It blew the front roof and the centre face plates off the turret, killed or wounded everyone inside, and started a fire that continued to smoulder despite efforts to put it out. Accounts of subsequent events differ, but the magazine doors had been closed and the magazine flooded when the smouldering fire ignited the propellant charges in the turret working room at 4:28. They burnt 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 it is probable that the magazine would have exploded, sinking the ship, if it had not already been flooded. At 16:30 the light cruiser Southampton, scouting in front of Beatty's ships, spotted the lead elements of the High Seas Fleet charging north at top speed. After confirming the sighting himself, Beatty ordered his ships to turn around and fall back upon the oncoming Grand Fleet. During the Run to the South Princess Royal was hit a total of six times by Derfflinger, but none of them were serious.
  Lion was hit twice more, during what came to be called the Run to the North, after the German battlecruisers made their own turn north. Beatty's ships slowly moved out of range and rendezvoused with the main body of the Grand Fleet. Beatty gradually turned more towards the east to allow him to cover the deployment of the Grand Fleet into its battle formation and to move ahead of it, but he mistimed his manoeuvre. By 18:35 Beatty was following the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron as they were steering east-southeast, leading the Grand Fleet, and continuing to engage Hipper's battlecruisers to their southwest. A few minutes earlier Scheer had ordered a simultaneous 180° turn and Beatty lost sight of them in the haze. Beatty then turned his ships southeast and to the south-southeast to search for Hipper's ships.
  Scheer finally disengaged around 19:15 and the British lost sight of the Germans until 20:05 when the light cruiser Castor spotted smoke bearing west-northwest. Ten minutes later she closed the range enough to identify German torpedo boats and engaged them. Beatty turned west upon hearing the sounds of gunfire and spotted the German battlecruisers only 8,500 yards (7,800 m) away. Inflexible opened fire at 20:20, followed almost immediately by the rest of Beatty's battlecruisers. Shortly after 20:30 the pre-dreadnought battleships of Rear Admiral Mauve's II Battle Squadron were spotted and fire switched to them. The Germans were able to fire only a few rounds in reply because of the poor visibility and turned away to the west. The British battlecruisers hit the German ships several times before they blended into the haze around 20:40. After this Beatty changed course to south-southeast and maintained that course, ahead of both the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet, until 02:55 the
caption: Queen Mary blowing up at the Battle of Jutland; she is hidden by the explosion and smoke. To the left is Lion, surrounded by waterspouts from enemy shots falling short.
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