, June 1914
Princess Royal was
laid down at the
Vickers shipyard in
Barrow-in-Furness on 2 May 1910. She was
launched on 29 April 1911 by
Louise, Princess Royal, and
commissioned on 14 November 1912. She cost
£1,955,922 plus an additional £120,300 for her armament. Upon commissioning,
Princess Royal joined the 1st Cruiser Squadron, which was renamed the 1st BCS in January 1913. Rear-Admiral
David Beatty assumed command of the 1st BCS on 1 March 1913. The squadron, including
Princess Royal, visited
Brest in February 1914 and ports in the
Russian Empire during June.
Battle of Heligoland Bight Princess Royal first saw combat during the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914. She was part of Beatty's battlecruiser force, which was originally to provide
distant support to the British
cruisers and
destroyers closer to the German coast if the German
High Seas Fleet sortied in response. The battlecruisers headed south at full speed at 11:35, when the British light forces failed to disengage on schedule, as the rising
tide meant that German capital ships would be able to clear the
bar at the mouth of the
Jade Estuary. The British
light cruiser had been crippled earlier in the battle and was under fire from the German light cruisers and when Beatty's battlecruisers appeared out of the mist at 12:37.
Strassburg was able to duck into the mists and evade fire, but
Cöln was quickly crippled by the squadron's guns. Before
Cöln could be sunk, Beatty was distracted by the sudden appearance of the German light cruiser directly to his front, and ordered pursuit.
Ariadne was reduced to a burning hulk after only three salvos at less than .
Princess Royal sailed from
Cromarty on 28 September to rendezvous with a Canadian troop convoy bound for the United Kingdom. She rejoined the 1st BCS on 26 October, but was detached again a few days later to reinforce the
North Atlantic and Caribbean Squadrons in the search for Admiral
Graf Spee's East Asia Squadron after it destroyed the British West Indies Squadron on 1 November during the
Battle of Coronel.
Princess Royal arrived at
Halifax on 21 November, then spent several days off New York City before she steamed down to the Caribbean to guard against the possibility that Graf Spee would use the
Panama Canal. The East Asia Squadron was
sunk off the Falkland Islands on 7 December, and
Princess Royal left
Kingston, Jamaica, en route to the UK on 19 December.
Battle of Dogger Bank On 23 January 1915, a force of German battlecruisers under the command of Admiral
Franz von Hipper sortied to clear the
Dogger Bank of any British vessels that might be collecting intelligence on German movements. The British
were reading the German coded messages, and a large battlecruiser force under Beatty sailed to intercept. Contact was initiated at 07:20 on the 24th, when the British light cruiser
Arethusa spotted the German light cruiser . By 07:35, the Germans had seen Beatty's force; Hipper – aboard – ordered his ships south at , thinking he could outpace any British battleships, and could increase to
Blüchers maximum speed of if the pursuing ships were battlecruisers. Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to catch the Germans before they could escape. The leading ships –
Lion,
Princess Royal and – pursued at , and
Lion opened fire at 08:52 at a range of . The other ships followed a few minutes later, but the extreme range and decreasing visibility meant they did not start scoring hits until 09:09. The German battlecruisers opened fire two minutes later at a range of and concentrated their fire on
Lion, hitting her once. At 09:35, Beatty signalled to "engage the corresponding ships in the enemy's line", but
Tigers captain – believing that was already engaging
Blücher – joined
Lion in attacking
Seydlitz, which left unengaged and able to fire on
Lion without risk.
Moltke and combined their fire to badly damage
Lion over the next hour, even with
Princess Royal attacking
Derfflinger. Meanwhile,
Blücher had been heavily damaged; her speed had dropped to , and her steering gear was jammed. Beatty ordered
Indomitable to attack her at 10:48. Six minutes later, he spotted what he thought was a submarine
periscope on the starboard bow and ordered an immediate 90° turn to port to avoid the submarine, although the submarine warning flag was not raised because most of
Lions signal
halyards had been shot away. Soon afterward,
Lion lost her remaining dynamo to the rising water, which knocked out all remaining light and power. At 11:02, Beatty had flags hoisted signalling "course north-east", to bring his ships back to their pursuit of Hipper, and "attack the rear of the enemy". Rear-Admiral Sir
Gordon Moore – temporarily commanding the squadron from – thought the signals meant to attack
Blücher, which was about to the north-east, and ordered the four other battlecruisers away from the pursuit of Hipper's main force to engage. Beatty tried to correct the mistake, but he was so far behind the leading battlecruisers that his signals could not be read in the smoke and haze. Beatty transferred to the destroyer at 11:50 and set off in pursuit of his battlecruisers, reaching them shortly before
Blücher sank. He boarded
Princess Royal at 12:20 and ordered the ships to pursue the main German force. This order was rescinded when it became clear that the time lost in sinking
Blücher meant the rest of Hipper's battlecruisers would reach friendly waters before they could be caught. Beatty's battlecruisers turned for home, catching up to
Lion, which was limping along at .
Princess Royal hit
Derfflinger once, but only damaged two armour plates and caused a coal bunker to flood. She hit
Blücher at least twice, including the shot that crippled her, out of a total of 271 shells fired during the battle, a hit rate of only 0.7%. By way of contrast, her
sister made four hits out of 243 shells fired, a rate of 1.6%. She also fired two 13.5-inch
shrapnel shells at the German
airship L 5 as its crew attempted to bomb the sinking
Blücher, mistaking it for a British ship, despite the fact that the maximum elevation of those guns was only 20°.
Princess Royal was not damaged during the battle.
Battle of Jutland On 31 May 1916,
Princess Royal was flagship of the 1st BCS under Beatty's overall command; they had put to sea with the rest of the Battlecruiser Fleet to intercept a sortie by the High Seas Fleet into the North Sea. The British had decoded 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 15:20, but Beatty's ships did not see the Germans to their east for another 10 minutes. At 15:32, Beatty ordered a course change to east south-east, positioning the British ships to cut off the Germans' line of retreat, and signalled
action stations. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard, away from the British, to assume a south-easterly course, and reduced speed to 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, behind him. Beatty altered course to the east, as he was still too far north to cut Hipper off. This began what was to be called the "Run to the South" as Beatty changed course to steer east south-east at 15:45, now paralleling Hipper's course less than away. The Germans opened fire first at 15:48, followed 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 two battlecruisers engaged , the leading German ship, while
Derfflinger targeted
Princess Royal. The German fire was accurate from the start, with two hits on
Princess Royal within the first three minutes. British gunnery was less effective; the range was incorrectly estimated as the German ships blended into the haze.
Princess Royals 'A' turret stopped working effectively early in the battle: the left gun was rendered inoperable when the breech
pinion gear sheared, and the right gun misfired frequently. By 15:54, the range was down to ; Beatty ordered a course change two
points to starboard to open up the range three minutes later. At 16:11, a torpedo fired by
Moltke passed under
Princess Royal. Those aboard the British ship saw the torpedo's track, but incorrectly concluded that a
U-boat was positioned on the opposite side of the British line – away from the German battlecruisers – and was firing toward both groups of ships. This false impression was compounded by reports of a periscope sighting by the destroyer . By this time, the distance between the British and German ships was too great for accurate fire, so Beatty altered course four points to port between 16:12 and 16:15, closing the range. This manoeuvre exposed
Lion to the fire of the German battlecruisers, and the smoke from multiple successful hits caused
Derfflinger to lose sight of
Princess Royal and switch targets to at 16:16. By 16:25, the range was down to and Beatty turned two points to starboard to open the range again. Around this time,
Queen Mary was hit multiple times in quick succession and her forward magazines exploded. At 16:30, the light cruiser , scouting in front of Beatty's ships, spotted the lead elements of the High Seas Fleet charging north at top speed. Three minutes later, they sighted the topmasts of
Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer's battleships, but did not report this to the fleet for another five minutes. Beatty continued south for another two minutes to confirm the sighting before ordering his force to turn north. The German battlecruisers made their own turn north in pursuit, but Beatty's ships maintained full speed, and gradually moved out of range. The British battlecruisers turned north, then north-east, to try to rendezvous with the main body of the
Grand Fleet, and at 17:40 opened fire again on their German counterparts. Facing the setting sun, the Germans could not make out the British ships and turned away to the north-east at 17:47. Beatty gradually turned towards the east so his ships could cover the Grand Fleet as it deployed into battle formation, but he mistimed his manoeuvre and forced the leading British division to manoeuvre away from the Germans. About 18:22,
Princess Royal was hit by two shells fired by the battleship ; one of these disabled 'X' turret and the other penetrated the ship's side armour. By 18:35, Beatty was following the 3rd BCS as they were leading the Grand Fleet east-southeast, and continuing to engage Hipper's battlecruisers to their south-west. A few minutes earlier, Scheer had ordered a simultaneous 180° starboard turn, and Beatty lost sight of them in the haze. At 18:44, Beatty turned his ships south-east, then south-southeast four minutes later, to find Hipper's force. He then ordered the two surviving ships of the 3rd BCS to take position astern of
New Zealand, while slowing to and altering course to the south. Beatty then ordered his ships to make a complete circle to stay within visual range of the Grand Fleet. At 18:55, Scheer ordered another 180° turn, which put the German ships on a converging course again with the Grand Fleet. However, the British had altered course to the south, allowing the Grand Fleet to
cross Scheer's "T" and inflict damage on the leading German ships. Scheer ordered yet another 180° turn at 19:13, and successfully extricated the High Seas Fleet from the danger precipitated by his previous turn. About this time,
Princess Royal fired at the leading German battlecruiser for three minutes without result. The British lost sight of the Germans until the light cruiser spotted smoke to the west-northwest at 20:05, then identified and engaged several German
torpedo boats. Hearing the sound of gunfire, Beatty ordered his ships west, and spotted the German battlecruisers only away.
Inflexible opened fire at 20:20, followed almost immediately by the rest of the battlecruisers. Shortly after 20:30, the
pre-dreadnought battleships of
Konteradmiral (Rear-Admiral)
Franz Mauve's
II Battle Squadron were spotted. The British battlecruisers and German pre-dreadnoughts exchanged fire; the Germans fired only a few times before turning away to the west because of poor visibility and the more accurate British gunnery, disappearing into the mist around 20:40. Beatty's battlecruisers sailed south-southeast, ahead of both the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet, until the order to reverse course for home was given at 02:55. Along with the rest of the battlecruisers,
Princess Royal reached
Rosyth Dockyard in Scotland on the morning of 2 June, and she immediately received temporary repairs over the next eight days. She then sailed for Plymouth, where permanent repairs were completed on 15 July, and returned to Rosyth by 21 July.
Princess Royal was hit nine times during the battle – six times by
Derfflinger during the "Run to the South", twice by
Markgraf during the "Run to the North", and once by just after II Battle Squadron appeared – with 22 killed and 81 injured. The battlecruiser fired only 230 main-gun shells during the battle, as her visibility was often impaired by the funnel smoke and fires aboard
Lion. She was credited with three hits on
Lützow and two on
Seydlitz.
Post-Jutland career The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August to ambush the High Seas Fleet while it advanced into the southern North Sea but miscommunications and mistakes prevented Jellicoe from intercepting the German fleet before it returned to port. Two light cruisers were sunk by German
U-boats during the operation, prompting Jellicoe to decide to not risk the major units of the fleet south of 55° 30' North due to the prevalence of German submarines and mines. The Admiralty concurred and stipulated that the Grand Fleet would not sortie unless the German fleet was attempting an invasion of Britain or that it could be forced into an engagement at a disadvantage.
Princess Royal provided support for British light forces involved in the
Second Battle of Heligoland Bight on 17 November 1917, but never came within range of any German ships. She sailed with the 1st BCS on 12 December after German destroyers sank seven ships of a Norway-bound convoy, including the escorting destroyer , four
naval trawlers and four
cargo ships earlier that day, but the British were unable to intercept and returned to base the following day.
Princess Royal, along with the rest of the Grand Fleet, sortied on the afternoon of 23 April 1918 after radio transmissions revealed that the High Seas Fleet was at sea after a failed attempt to intercept the regular British convoy to Norway. However, the Germans were too far ahead of the British, and no shots were fired. Starting in July, the Grand Fleet was affected by the
1918 flu pandemic; at one point,
Princess Royal lacked sufficient healthy crewmen to sail. Following the
surrender of the High Seas Fleet at the end of the war,
Princess Royal and the 1st BCS made up part of the guard force at
Scapa Flow.
Princess Royal was reassigned to the
Atlantic Fleet in April 1919. The battlecruiser was placed in reserve the following year, and an attempt to sell her to Chile later in 1920 was unsuccessful. She became the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief of the Scottish Coast on 22 February 1922 and was sold on 22 January 1923 to
J&W Purves for £25,000. Her contract was immediately transferred to the
Rosyth Shipbreaking Co. which had leased facilities at
Rosyth Dockyard for that purpose, and her demolition was completed during 1925. ==Notes==