HMS INDEFATIGABLE was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy and the lead ship of her class. Her keel was laid down in 1909 and she was commissioned in 1911. She was an enlarged version of the earlier Invincible class with a revised protection scheme and additional length amidships to allow her two middle turrets to fire on either broadside.
Upon commissioning, HMS INDEFATIGABLE served in the 1st Cruiser Squadron, which in January 1913 was renamed the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS). In December 1913, she transferred to the Mediterranean, where she joined the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron.
Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau
HMS INDEFATIGABLE, accompanied by the battlecruiser HMS Indomitable and under the command of Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, encountered the German battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau on the morning of 4 August 1914, which were headed east after a cursory bombardment of the French Algerian port of Philippeville. Britain and Germany were not yet at war, so Milne turned to shadow the Germans as they headed back to Messina to re-coal. All three battlecruisers had problems with their boilers, but Goeben and Breslau were able to break contact and reached Messina by the morning of the 5th. By this time Germany had invaded Belgium and war had been declared, but an Admiralty order to respect Italian neutrality and stay more than six miles (10 km) from the Italian coast precluded entering the Strait of Messina, from which they could have observed the port directly. Therefore Milne stationed Inflexible and Indefatigable at the northern exit of the strait, expecting the Germans to break out to the west where they could attack French troop transports. He stationed the light cruiser HMS Gloucester at the southern exit, and sent Indomitable to coal at Bizerte, where she was ready for action in the Western Mediterranean.
The Germans sortied from Messina on 6 August and headed east, towards Constantinople, trailed by HMS Gloucester. Milne, still expecting Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchon to turn west, kept the battlecruisers at Malta until shortly after midnight on 8 August when he set sail at a leisurely 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) for Cape Matapan, where Goeben had been spotted eight hours earlier. At 2:30 p.m.he received an incorrect message from the Admiralty stating that Britain was at war with Austria-Hungary. War would not actually be declared until 12 August, and the order was countermanded four hours later, but Milne gave up the hunt for Goeben, following his standing orders to guard the Adriatic against an Austrian breakout attempt. On 9 August Milne was given clear orders to "chase Goeben which had passed Cape Matapan on the 7th steering north-east." Milne still did not believe that Souchon was heading for the Dardanelles, and so he resolved to guard the exit from the Aegean, unaware that the Goeben did not intend to come out.
On 3 November 1914, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered the first British attack on the Dardanelles following the commencement of hostilities between Ottoman Turkey and Russia. The attack was carried out by Indomitable and Indefatigable, as well as the French pre-dreadnought battleships Suffren and Vérité. The intention of the attack was to test the fortifications and measure the Turkish response. The results were deceptively encouraging. In a twenty-minute bombardment, a single shell struck the magazine of the fort at Sedd el Bahr at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, displacing (but not destroying) 10 guns and killing 86 Turkish soldiers. The most significant consequence was that the attention of the Turks was drawn to strengthening their defences, and they set about expanding the mine field. This attack actually took place before Britain's formal declaration of war on 6 November against the Ottoman Empire. HMS INDEFATIGABLE remained in the Mediterranean until she was relieved by Inflexible on 24 January 1915 and proceeded to Malta for a refit; she then sailed to England on 14 February and joined the 2nd BCS upon her arrival. The ship conducted uneventful patrols of the North Sea for the next year and a half. She was the temporary flagship of the 2nd BCS during April–May 1916, while her half-sister HMAS Australia was under repair after colliding with HMS INDEFATIGABLE's other half-sister HMS New Zealand.
Battle of Jutland
On 31 May 1916, the 2nd BCS consisted of HMS New Zealand (flagship of Rear-Admiral William Pakenham) and Indefatigable. The squadron was assigned to 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. Admiral Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers spotted the Battlecruiser Fleet to their west at 3:20 p.m., but Beatty's ships did not spot the Germans to their east until 3:30. Two minutes later, he ordered a course change to east south-east to position himself astride the German's line of retreat and called his ships' crews to action stations. He also ordered the 2nd BCS, which had been leading, to fall in astern of the 1st BCS. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard, away from the British, to assume a south-easterly course, and to reduce 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 3:45, paralleling Hipper's course, now that the range closed to under 18,000 yards (16,000 m). The Germans opened fire first at 3:48, followed by the British. The British ships were still in the process of making their turn as only the two leading ships, HMS Lion and HMS Princess Royal, had steadied on their course when the Germans opened fire. The British formation was echeloned to the right with HMS INDEFATIGABLE in the rear and furthest to the west, and HMS New Zealand ahead of her and slightly further east. The German fire was accurate from the beginning, but the British overestimated the range as the German ships blended into the haze. HMS INDEFATIGABLE aimed at Von der Tann and HMS New Zealand targeted Moltke while remaining unengaged herself. By 3:54, 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 3:57.
HMS INDEFATIGABLE was hit around the rear turret by two or three shells from Von der Tann. She fell out of formation to starboard and started sinking towards the stern and listing to port. Her magazines exploded at 4:03 after more hits, one on the forecastle and another on the forward turret. Smoke and flames gushed from the forward part of the ship and large pieces were thrown 200 feet (61.0 m) into the air. The most likely cause of her loss was a deflagration or low-order explosion in 'X' magazine that blew out her bottom and severed the steering control shafts, followed by the explosion of her forward magazines from the second volley. Von der Tann fired only fifty-two 28 cm (11 in) shells at Indefatigable before she exploded. Of her crew of 1,017, only three survived. While still in the water, two survivors found HMS INDEFATIGABLE's captain, C. F. Sowerby, who was badly wounded and died before they could be rescued. The two survivors, Able Seaman Elliott and Leading Signalman Falmer, were rescued by the German torpedo boat S16. A third survivor, Signalman John Bowyer, was also rescued by the Germans, but the ship that picked him out of the water is unknown.
HMS INDEFATIGABLE today
HMS INDEFATIGABLE, along with the other Jutland wrecks, was belatedly declared a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, to discourage further damage to the resting place of 1,014 men. Mount Indefatigable in the Canadian Rockies was named after the battlecruiser in 1917. The wreck was discovered by nautical archaeologist Innes McCartney in 2001 and was found to have been heavily commercially salvaged sometime in the past
Name: HMS INDEFATIGABLE
Ordered: 1908–09 Naval Programme
Builder: Devonport Dockyard
Laid down: 23 February 1909
Launched: 28 October 1909
Commissioned: 24 February 1911
Fate: Sunk during the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916
General characteristics
Class and type: Indefatigable-class battlecruiser
Displacement: 18,500 long tons (18,800 t)
22,130 long tons (22,485 t) at deep load
Length: 590 ft (179.8 m)
Beam: 80 ft (24.4 m)
Draught: 29 ft 9 in (9.07 m) (deep load)
Installed power: 43,000 shp (32,000 kW)
Propulsion: 4 shafts, 2 Parsons direct-drive steam turbine sets
31 Babcock & Wilcox coal-fired boilers
Speed: 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph)
Range: 6,690 nmi (12,390 km; 7,700 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)[2]
Complement: 800
Armament: 4 × 2 – BL 12-inch Mk X guns
16 × 1 – BL 4-inch Mk VII guns
2 × 1 – submerged 17.72-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour: Belt: 4–6 in (102–152 mm)
Decks: 1.5–2.5 in (38–64 mm)
Barbettes: 7 in (178 mm)
Gun turrets: 7 in (178 mm)
Conning tower: 4–10 in (102–254 mm)
Torpedo bulkheads: 2.5 in (64 mm)
Delandre label
Source: Wikipedia
Peter Crichton
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