List of Battlecruisers of The Royal Navy - HMS Queen Mary

HMS Queen Mary

HMS Queen Mary was similar to the Lion-class battlecruisers, though she was slightly larger and given more powerful engines to achieve the same speed as the earlier ships. Her secondary guns were better protected and some of her belt armour was redistributed. She was the last battlecruiser completed before the beginning of the war, and she participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight shortly after the war began. As part of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, she unsuccessfully attempted to intercept a German force that bombarded the North Sea coast of England in December 1914. She was refitting during the Battle of Dogger Bank in early 1915, but participated in the next major fleet action of the war, the Battle of Jutland in mid-1916. Queen Mary hit the German battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz early in the battle and burnt out one of that ship's rear turrets. Seydlitz later knocked out one of Queen Mary's main guns. The German battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger, in the meantime, had lost sight of her previous target in the haze and switched to Queen Mary. Within 10 minutes, Queen Mary was hit twice, exploding shortly afterwards.