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HMS Indomitable (1907)
Encyclopedia
HMS Indomitable was an of the British Royal Navy
. She was built before World War I
and had an active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German ships Goeben and Breslau in the Mediterranean when war broke out and bombarded Turkish fortifications protecting the Dardanelles
even before the British declared war on Turkey. She helped to sink the German armoured cruiser Blücher during the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915 and towed the damaged British battlecruiser Lion to safety after the battle. She damaged the German battlecruisers Seydlitz and Derfflinger during the Battle of Jutland and watched her sister Invincible explode. She was deemed obsolete after the war and was sold for scrap in 1921.
Indomitable was significantly larger than her armoured cruiser predecessors of the . She had an overall length of 567 ft (172.8 m), a beam
of 78 foot, and a draft of 30 ft (9.1 m) at deep load. She displaced 17250 long tons (17,526.9 t) at load and 20420 long tons (20,747.7 t) at deep load, nearly 3000 long tons (3,048.2 t) more than the earlier ships.
direct-drive turbines. The two sets, each with a condenser, were housed in port and starboard engine-rooms separated by a longitudinal bulkhead. The high-pressure ahead and astern turbines drove the outboard shafts and the low-pressure ahead and astern turbines drove the inner shafts. A cruising turbine was also coupled to each inner shaft; these were not used often and were eventually disconnected. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 41000 shp, but reached nearly 48000 shp during trials in 1908. Indomitable was designed for 25 knots (49 km/h), but reached 26.1 knots (51 km/h) during trials. She maintained an average speed of 25.3 knots (50 km/h) for three days during a passage of the North Atlantic
in August 1908.
Indomitables three-bladed propellers were 10 in 6 in (3.2 m) in diameter on the inner shafts and 9 in 6 in (2.9 m) in diameter on the outer shafts. The steam plant comprised 31 Babcock and Wilcox
water-tube boiler
s arranged in four boiler rooms. Maximum bunkerage was 3083 long tons (3,132.5 t) of coal, and an additional 713 long tons (724.4 t) of fuel oil
that was to be sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. At full fuel capacity, she could steam for 3090 nautical miles (5,722.7 km) at a speed of 10 knots (19.6 km/h).
in four twin hydraulically powered turret
s. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen 4 in (10 cm) QF Mk III guns. During 1915 the turret roof guns were transferred to the superstructure and the total number of guns was reduced to twelve. All of the remaining guns were enclosed in casemate
s and given blast shields at that time to better protect the gun crews from weather and enemy action. The QF Mk III guns were replaced by twelve 4-inch BL MK VII
guns on PVI mountings during 1917.
Her anti-aircraft
armament consisted of a single QF 3 inch 20 cwt
AA gun on a high-angle MKII mount at the aft end of the superstructure that was carried from July 1915. A 3-pounder Hotchkiss gun
on a high-angle MkIc mounting with a maximum elevation of 60° was also mounted in November 1914 and used until August 1917. A 4-inch BL MK VII on a HA MkII mount was added in April 1917. Five 18-inch (450-mm)
submerged torpedo tube
s were fitted on the Invincibles, two on each side and one in the stern. Fourteen torpedoes were carried for them.
measured 6 inches (152 mm) amidships in contrast to the 4 inches (102 mm) belt of their predecessors. The belt was 6 inches thick roughly between the fore and aft 12-inch gun turrets, but was reduced to four inches from the fore turret to the bow, but did not extend aft of the rear turret. The gun turrets and barbettes were protected by 7 in (178 mm) of armour, except for the turret roofs which used 3 in (76 mm) of Krupp non-cemented armour (KNC). The thickness of the main deck
was 1–2 in (25.4–50.8 mm) and the lower deck armour was 1.5–2.5 in (38.1–63.5 mm). Mild steel torpedo bulkhead
s of 2.5-inch thickness were fitted abreast the magazines
and shell rooms.
After the Battle of Jutland
revealed her vulnerability to plunging shellfire, additional armour was added in the area of the magazines and to the turret roofs. The exact thickness is not known, but it was unlikely to be thick as the total amount was less than 100 LT.
. She was laid down on 1 March 1906 and launched on 26 June 1907. She was commissioned on 20 June 1908 before she was fully complete to carry the Prince of Wales
to Canada.
". She returned on 10 August and was immediately returned to her builders for final completion. She was assigned to the Nore Division of the Home Fleet on 28 October and assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron (CS) in March 1909. She became the flagship of Rear-Admiral S. Colville, commanding the 1st CS, on 26 July. She was refitted several times between 1910 and 1913 before she was transferred to the Mediterranean on 27 August 1913 to form the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron
(BCS) with her sister ship Invincible. She was slightly damaged in a collision in Stokes Bay
with the minelayer C4 on 17 March 1913. She was refitting in Malta
in July 1914 when the deepening crisis forced her to cut short her refit.
Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne
encountered the German battlecruiser and the light cruiser on the morning of 4 August 1914 headed east after a cursory bombardment of the French Algerian port of Philippeville, but Britain and Germany were not yet at war so Milne turned to shadow the Germans as they headed back to Messina to recoal. 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 war had been declared, after the German invasion of Belgium, but an Admiralty order to respect Italian neutrality and stay outside a six-mile (10 km) limit from the Italian coast precluded entrance into the passage of the Strait of Messina
where they could observe the port directly. Therefore Milne stationed Inflexible and Indefatigable at the northern exit of the Strait of Messina, still expecting the Germans to break out to the west where they could attack French troop transports, the light cruiser at the southern exit and sent Indomitable to recoal at Bizerte
where she was better positioned to react to a German sortie into the Western Mediterranean.
The Germans sortied from Messina on 6 August and headed east, towards Constantinople
, trailed by 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 for Cape Matapan
at a leisurely 12 knots (24 km/h), where Goeben had been spotted eight hours earlier. At 2:30 p.m. he received an incorrect signal from the Admiralty stating that Britain was at war with Austria — war would not be declared until 12 August and the order was countermanded four hours later, but Milne followed his standing orders to guard the Adriatic against an Austrian breakout attempt, rather than seek Goeben. Finally 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. Indomitable remained in the Mediterranean to blockade the Dardanelles
, but Inflexible was ordered home on 18 August.
On 3 November 1914, Churchill
ordered the first British attack on the Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between 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 a formal declaration of war
had been made by Britain against the Ottoman Empire
which didn't happen until the 5th. Indomitable was ordered to return to England in December where she joined the 2nd BCS.
sortied to clear the Dogger Bank
of any British fishing boats or small craft that might be there to collect intelligence on German movements. But the British were reading their coded messages and sailed to intercept them with a larger force of British battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Beatty, which included Indomitable. Contact was initiated at 7:20 AMThe times used in this section are in UTC
, which is one hour behind CET
, which is often used in German works. on the 24th when the British light cruiser Arethusa
spotted the German light cruiser . By 7:35 the Germans had spotted Beatty's force and Hipper ordered a turn to the south at 20 kn (24.4 mph; 39.2 km/h), believing that this would suffice if the ships that he saw to his northwest were British battleships and that he could always increased speed to 's maximum speed of 23 kn (28 mph; 45.1 km/h) if they were British battlecruisers.
Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to make all practicable speed to catch the Germans before they could escape. Indomitable managed to exceed 26 kn (31.7 mph; 51 km/h) and Beatty recognized her performance with a signal at 8:55 "Well done, Indomitable" Despite this achievement Indomitable was the slowest of Beatty's ships and gradually fell behind the newer and faster battlecruisers. By 10:48 Blücher had been heavily damaged by fire from all the other battlecruisers and her speed had dropped to 17 kn (20.7 mph; 33.3 km/h) and her steering gear had been jammed; Beatty ordered Indomitable to attack her. But due to a combination of a mistake by Beatty's flag lieutenant in signaling and heavy damage to Beatty's flagship which had knocked out her radio and caused enough smoke to obscure her signal halyard
s so that Beatty couldn't communicate with his ships caused the rest of the battlecruisers to turn away from Hipper's main body and engage Blücher. Indomitable fired 134 shells at Blücher before she capsized and sank at 12:07 PM. After the end of the battle Indomitable was ordered to tow Lion back to port as one of her engines had been knocked out, the other was failing and she'd been hulled a number of times beneath the waterline. It took over a day and a half at speeds of 7–10 kn (13.7–19.6 km/h).
She was transferred to the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron
(BCS) in February 1915 although she was being repaired after an electrical fire at the time. Rear Admiral H.L.A. Hood took command of the 3rd BCS on 27 May 1915. The 1st and 3rd BCS sortied in response to the German bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft
on 24–25 April 1916, but failed to locate the German ships in heavy weather.
. In order to support Beatty, Admiral Hood took his three battlecruisers ahead of the Grand Fleet. At about 2:30 PM Invincible intercepted a radio message from the British light cruiser , attached to Beatty's Battlecruiser Force, reporting the sighting of two enemy cruisers. This was amplified by other reports of seven enemy ships steering north. Hood interpreted this as an attempt to escape through the Skagerrak
and ordered an increase in speed to 22 kn (43.1 km/h) at 3:11 and steered East-Southeast to cut off the fleeing ships. Twenty minutes later Invincible intercepted a message from Beatty reporting five enemy battlecruisers in sight and later signals reporting that he was engaging the enemy on a south-easterly course. At 4:06 Hood ordered full speed and a course of south-southeast in an attempt to converge on Beatty. At 4:56, with no British ships in sight, Hood requested Beatty's course, position and speed, but never received a reply.
Hood continued on course until 5:40 when gunfire was spotted in the direction to which his light cruiser had been dispatched to investigate other gunfire flashes. Chester encountered four light cruisers of Hipper's 2nd Scouting Group and was badly damaged before Hood turned to investigate and was able to drive the German cruisers away from Chester. At 5:53 Invincible opened fire on and the other two Invincibles followed two minutes later. The German ships turned for the south after fruitlessly firing torpedoes at 6:00 and attempted to find shelter in the mist. As they turned Invincible hit Wiesbaden in the engine room and knocked out her engines while Inflexible hit once. The 2nd Scouting Group was escorted by the light cruiser and 31 destroyers of the 2nd and 9th Flotillas and the 12th Half-Flotilla which attacked the 3rd BCS in succession. They were driven off by Hood's remaining light cruiser and the five destroyers of his escort. In a confused action the Germans only launched 12 torpedoes and disabled the destroyer with gunfire. Having turned due west to close on Beatty's ships, the Invincibles were broadside to the oncoming torpedoes, but Invincible turned north, while Inflexible and Indomitable turned south to present their narrowest profile to the torpedoes. All the torpedoes missed, although one passed underneath Inflexible without detonating. As Invincible turned north, her helm jammed and she had to come to a stop to fix the problem, but this was quickly done and the squadron reformed heading west.
At 6:21, with both Beatty and the Grand Fleet converging on him, Hood turned south to lead Beatty's battlecruisers. Hipper's battlecruisers were 9000 yards (8.2 km) away and the Invincibles almost immediately opened fire on Hipper's flagship and . Indomitable hit Derfflinger three times and once, while the Lützow quickly took 10 hits from , Inflexible and Invincible, including two hits below the waterline forward by Invincible that would ultimately doom Hipper's flagship. But at 6:30 Invincible abruptly appeared as a clear target before Lützow and Derfflinger. The two German ships then fired three salvoes each at Invincible, and sank her in 90 seconds. A 305 mm (12-inch) shell from the third salvo struck the roof of Invincibles midships 'Q' turret, flash detonated the magazines below, and the ship blew up and broke in two, killing all but six of her crew of 1,032 officers and men, including Rear-Admiral Hood.
Inflexible and Indomitable remained in company with Beatty for the rest of the battle. They encountered Hipper's battlecruisers only 10000 yards (9.1 km) away as the sun was setting about 8:19 and opened fire. Seydlitz was hit five times before the German battlecruisers were rescued by the appearance of the pre-dreadnought battleships of Rear Admiral Mauve and the British shifted fire to the new threat. Three of the predreadnoughts were hit before they too were able to turn into the gloom.
The loss of three battlecruisers at Jutland (the others were and ) led to the force being reorganised into two squadrons, with Inflexible and Indomitable in the 2nd BCS. However, after Jutland there was little significant naval activity for the Invincibles, other than routine patrolling, thanks to the Kaiser's order that his ships should not be allowed to go to sea unless assured of victory. She was refitted in August 1916, where she received additional armour over her magazine and turret roofs. Indomitable was fitted with two flying off ramps fitted above her midships turrets in early 1918.
The end of the war saw the end for many of the older vessels, not least the two remaining Invincible class ships. Both were sent to the Reserve Fleet in 1919, and were paid off in March 1920, before being sold for scrap on 1 December 1921.
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. She was built before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and had an active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German ships Goeben and Breslau in the Mediterranean when war broke out and bombarded Turkish fortifications protecting the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
even before the British declared war on Turkey. She helped to sink the German armoured cruiser Blücher during the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915 and towed the damaged British battlecruiser Lion to safety after the battle. She damaged the German battlecruisers Seydlitz and Derfflinger during the Battle of Jutland and watched her sister Invincible explode. She was deemed obsolete after the war and was sold for scrap in 1921.
General characteristics
The Invincible class ships were formally known as armoured cruisers until 1911 when they were redesignated as battlecruisers by an Admiralty order of 24 November 1911. Unofficially a number of designations were used until then, including cruiser-battleship, dreadnought cruiser and battle-cruiser.Indomitable was significantly larger than her armoured cruiser predecessors of the . She had an overall length of 567 ft (172.8 m), a beam
Beam (nautical)
The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...
of 78 foot, and a draft of 30 ft (9.1 m) at deep load. She displaced 17250 long tons (17,526.9 t) at load and 20420 long tons (20,747.7 t) at deep load, nearly 3000 long tons (3,048.2 t) more than the earlier ships.
Propulsion
Indomitable had two paired sets of ParsonsParsons Marine Steam Turbine Company
Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company was a British engineering company based in Wallsend, North England, on the River Tyne.-History:The company was founded by Charles Algernon Parsons in 1897 with £500,000 of capital, and specialised in building the steam turbine engines that he had invented for...
direct-drive turbines. The two sets, each with a condenser, were housed in port and starboard engine-rooms separated by a longitudinal bulkhead. The high-pressure ahead and astern turbines drove the outboard shafts and the low-pressure ahead and astern turbines drove the inner shafts. A cruising turbine was also coupled to each inner shaft; these were not used often and were eventually disconnected. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 41000 shp, but reached nearly 48000 shp during trials in 1908. Indomitable was designed for 25 knots (49 km/h), but reached 26.1 knots (51 km/h) during trials. She maintained an average speed of 25.3 knots (50 km/h) for three days during a passage of the North Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
in August 1908.
Indomitables three-bladed propellers were 10 in 6 in (3.2 m) in diameter on the inner shafts and 9 in 6 in (2.9 m) in diameter on the outer shafts. The steam plant comprised 31 Babcock and Wilcox
Babcock and Wilcox
The Babcock & Wilcox Company is a U.S.-based company that provides design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and facilities management services to nuclear, renewable, fossil power, industrial and government customers worldwide. B&W's boilers supply more than 300,000 megawatts of installed...
water-tube boiler
Water-tube boiler
A water tube boiler is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which heats water in the steam-generating tubes...
s arranged in four boiler rooms. Maximum bunkerage was 3083 long tons (3,132.5 t) of coal, and an additional 713 long tons (724.4 t) of fuel oil
Fuel oil
Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash...
that was to be sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. At full fuel capacity, she could steam for 3090 nautical miles (5,722.7 km) at a speed of 10 knots (19.6 km/h).
Armament
Indomitable mounted eight BL 12 inches (304.8 mm) Mk X gunsBL 12 inch Mk X naval gun
The BL 12 inch Gun Mark X was a British 45-calibres naval gun which was mounted as primary armament on battleships and battlecruisers from 1906...
in four twin hydraulically powered turret
Turret
In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...
s. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen 4 in (10 cm) QF Mk III guns. During 1915 the turret roof guns were transferred to the superstructure and the total number of guns was reduced to twelve. All of the remaining guns were enclosed in casemate
Casemate
A casemate, sometimes rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. originally a vaulted chamber in a fortress.-Origin of the term:...
s and given blast shields at that time to better protect the gun crews from weather and enemy action. The QF Mk III guns were replaced by twelve 4-inch BL MK VII
BL 4 inch naval gun Mk VII
The BL 4-inch gun Mk VII was a British high-velocity naval gun introduced in 1908 as an anti-torpedo boat gun in large ships, and in the main armament of smaller ships...
guns on PVI mountings during 1917.
Her anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare
NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...
armament consisted of a single QF 3 inch 20 cwt
QF 3 inch 20 cwt
The QF 3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft gun became the standard anti-aircraft gun used in the home defence of the United Kingdom against German airships and bombers and on the Western Front in World War I. It was also common on British warships in World War I and submarines in World War II...
AA gun on a high-angle MKII mount at the aft end of the superstructure that was carried from July 1915. A 3-pounder Hotchkiss gun
Hotchkiss gun
The Hotchkiss gun can refer to different products of the Hotchkiss arms company starting in the late 19th century. It usually refers to the 1.65-inch light mountain gun; there was also a 3-inch Hotchkiss gun...
on a high-angle MkIc mounting with a maximum elevation of 60° was also mounted in November 1914 and used until August 1917. A 4-inch BL MK VII on a HA MkII mount was added in April 1917. Five 18-inch (450-mm)
British 18 inch torpedo
There have been a number of 18 inch torpedoes in service with the United Kingdom. These have been used on ships of the Royal Navy and aircraft of both the Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force...
submerged torpedo tube
Torpedo tube
A torpedo tube is a device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units installed aboard surface vessels...
s were fitted on the Invincibles, two on each side and one in the stern. Fourteen torpedoes were carried for them.
Armour
The armour protection given to the Invincibles was heavier than that of the Minotaurs—their waterline beltBelt armor
Belt armor is a layer of heavy metal armor plated on to or within outer hulls of warships, typically on battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers, and on aircraft carriers converted from those types of ships....
measured 6 inches (152 mm) amidships in contrast to the 4 inches (102 mm) belt of their predecessors. The belt was 6 inches thick roughly between the fore and aft 12-inch gun turrets, but was reduced to four inches from the fore turret to the bow, but did not extend aft of the rear turret. The gun turrets and barbettes were protected by 7 in (178 mm) of armour, except for the turret roofs which used 3 in (76 mm) of Krupp non-cemented armour (KNC). The thickness of the main deck
Deck (ship)
A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary deck is the horizontal structure which forms the 'roof' for the hull, which both strengthens the hull and serves as the primary working surface...
was 1–2 in (25.4–50.8 mm) and the lower deck armour was 1.5–2.5 in (38.1–63.5 mm). Mild steel torpedo bulkhead
Torpedo bulkhead
A torpedo bulkhead is a type of armor common on the more heavily armored warships, especially battleships and battlecruisers of the early 20th century. It is designed to keep the ship afloat even if the hull was struck underneath the belt armor by a shell or by a torpedo...
s of 2.5-inch thickness were fitted abreast the magazines
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...
and shell rooms.
After the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
revealed her vulnerability to plunging shellfire, additional armour was added in the area of the magazines and to the turret roofs. The exact thickness is not known, but it was unlikely to be thick as the total amount was less than 100 LT.
Construction
She was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd, at GovanGovan
Govan is a district and former burgh now part of southwest City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick....
. She was laid down on 1 March 1906 and launched on 26 June 1907. She was commissioned on 20 June 1908 before she was fully complete to carry the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
to Canada.
Early career
Immediately after commissioning, Indomitable embarked the Prince of Wales (soon to be King George V) for the City of Quebec Tercentenary celebration. On her return voyage, "…her average was a fraction below 25 knots, almost equalling the record for an Atlantic crossing of 25.08 knots, set by the liner LusitaniaRMS Lusitania
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. The ship entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 26 August 1907 and continued on the line's heavily-traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New...
". She returned on 10 August and was immediately returned to her builders for final completion. She was assigned to the Nore Division of the Home Fleet on 28 October and assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron (CS) in March 1909. She became the flagship of Rear-Admiral S. Colville, commanding the 1st CS, on 26 July. She was refitted several times between 1910 and 1913 before she was transferred to the Mediterranean on 27 August 1913 to form the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron
2nd Battlecruiser Squadron (United Kingdom)
The 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron was a Royal Navy squadron of battlecruisers that saw service as part of the Grand Fleet during the First World War.-August 1914:In August 1914, the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron was in the Mediterranean, and consisted of:-1915:...
(BCS) with her sister ship Invincible. She was slightly damaged in a collision in Stokes Bay
Stokes Bay
Stokes Bay is an area of the Solent that lies just south of Gosport, between Portsmouth and Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire. There is a shingle beach that has a great view of Ryde and East Cowes on the Isle of Wight to the south and also Fawley in the south west. The village of Alverstoke is close by...
with the minelayer C4 on 17 March 1913. She was refitting in Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
in July 1914 when the deepening crisis forced her to cut short her refit.
Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau
Indomitable, accompanied by , under the command of AdmiralAdmiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne
Archibald Berkeley Milne
Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, 2nd Baronet GCVO KCB was a senior Royal Navy officer who commanded the Mediterranean Fleet at the outbreak of the First World War.- Naval career :...
encountered the German battlecruiser and the light cruiser on the morning of 4 August 1914 headed east after a cursory bombardment of the French Algerian port of Philippeville, but Britain and Germany were not yet at war so Milne turned to shadow the Germans as they headed back to Messina to recoal. 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 war had been declared, after the German invasion of Belgium, but an Admiralty order to respect Italian neutrality and stay outside a six-mile (10 km) limit from the Italian coast precluded entrance into the passage of the Strait of Messina
Strait of Messina
The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...
where they could observe the port directly. Therefore Milne stationed Inflexible and Indefatigable at the northern exit of the Strait of Messina, still expecting the Germans to break out to the west where they could attack French troop transports, the light cruiser at the southern exit and sent Indomitable to recoal at Bizerte
Bizerte
Bizerte or Benzert , is the capital city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia and the northernmost city in Africa. It has a population of 230,879 .-History:...
where she was better positioned to react to a German sortie into the Western Mediterranean.
The Germans sortied from Messina on 6 August and headed east, towards Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, trailed by Gloucester. Milne, still expecting Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
Wilhelm Souchon
Wilhelm Souchon
Wilhelm Anton Souchon was a German and Ottoman admiral in World War I who commanded the Kaiserliche Marine's Mediterranean squadron in the early days of the war...
to turn west, kept the battlecruisers at Malta until shortly after midnight on 8 August when he set sail for Cape Matapan
Cape Matapan
Cape Tainaron , also known as Cape Matapan , is situated at the end of the Mani, Laconia, Greece. Cape Matapan is the southernmost point of mainland Greece. It separates the Messenian Gulf in the west from the Laconian Gulf in the east.-History:...
at a leisurely 12 knots (24 km/h), where Goeben had been spotted eight hours earlier. At 2:30 p.m. he received an incorrect signal from the Admiralty stating that Britain was at war with Austria — war would not be declared until 12 August and the order was countermanded four hours later, but Milne followed his standing orders to guard the Adriatic against an Austrian breakout attempt, rather than seek Goeben. Finally 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
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, unaware that the Goeben did not intend to come out. Indomitable remained in the Mediterranean to blockade the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
, but Inflexible was ordered home on 18 August.
On 3 November 1914, Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
ordered the first British attack on the Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between Turkey and Russia. The attack was carried out by Indomitable and Indefatigable, as well as the French pre-dreadnought battleships Suffren
French battleship Suffren
Suffren was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy, launched in July 1899. She was named after French Vice Admiral Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez. The ship was originally intended to be a modified version of the design with more firepower and better armour...
and Vérité
French battleship Vérité (1907)
The Vérité was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy.After her trails in June 1908, Vérité departed in 18 August, ferrying President Armand Fallières bound for officials visits to Denmark, Sweden, Russia and Norway....
. 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
Sedd el Bahr
Sedd el Bahr is a village at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The village lies east of the cape, on the shore of the Dardanelles...
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 a formal declaration of war
Declaration of war
A declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is a performative speech act by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more states.The legality of who is competent to declare war varies...
had been made by Britain against the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
which didn't happen until the 5th. Indomitable was ordered to return to England in December where she joined the 2nd BCS.
Battle of Dogger Bank
On 23 January 1915, a force of German battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Franz von HipperFranz von Hipper
Franz Ritter von Hipper was an admiral in the German Imperial Navy . Franz von Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as an officer cadet. He commanded several torpedo boat units and served as watch officer aboard several warships, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern...
sortied to clear the Dogger Bank
Dogger Bank
Dogger Bank is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England. It extends over approximately , with its dimensions being about long and up to broad. The water depth ranges from 15 to 36 metres , about shallower than the surrounding sea. It is a...
of any British fishing boats or small craft that might be there to collect intelligence on German movements. But the British were reading their coded messages and sailed to intercept them with a larger force of British battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Beatty, which included Indomitable. Contact was initiated at 7:20 AMThe times used in this section are in UTC
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
, which is one hour behind CET
Central European Time
Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...
, which is often used in German works. on the 24th when the British light cruiser Arethusa
HMS Arethusa (1913)
HMS Arethusa was the name ship of the Arethusa class of light cruisers. She was laid down at Chatham Dockyard in October 1912, launched on 25 October 1913, and commissioned in August 1914 as flotilla leader for the Harwich Destroyer flotillas....
spotted the German light cruiser . By 7:35 the Germans had spotted Beatty's force and Hipper ordered a turn to the south at 20 kn (24.4 mph; 39.2 km/h), believing that this would suffice if the ships that he saw to his northwest were British battleships and that he could always increased speed to 's maximum speed of 23 kn (28 mph; 45.1 km/h) if they were British battlecruisers.
Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to make all practicable speed to catch the Germans before they could escape. Indomitable managed to exceed 26 kn (31.7 mph; 51 km/h) and Beatty recognized her performance with a signal at 8:55 "Well done, Indomitable" Despite this achievement Indomitable was the slowest of Beatty's ships and gradually fell behind the newer and faster battlecruisers. By 10:48 Blücher had been heavily damaged by fire from all the other battlecruisers and her speed had dropped to 17 kn (20.7 mph; 33.3 km/h) and her steering gear had been jammed; Beatty ordered Indomitable to attack her. But due to a combination of a mistake by Beatty's flag lieutenant in signaling and heavy damage to Beatty's flagship which had knocked out her radio and caused enough smoke to obscure her signal halyard
Halyard
In sailing, a halyard or halliard is a line that is used to hoist a sail, a flag or a yard. The term halyard comes from the phrase, 'to haul yards'...
s so that Beatty couldn't communicate with his ships caused the rest of the battlecruisers to turn away from Hipper's main body and engage Blücher. Indomitable fired 134 shells at Blücher before she capsized and sank at 12:07 PM. After the end of the battle Indomitable was ordered to tow Lion back to port as one of her engines had been knocked out, the other was failing and she'd been hulled a number of times beneath the waterline. It took over a day and a half at speeds of 7–10 kn (13.7–19.6 km/h).
She was transferred to the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron
3rd Battlecruiser Squadron (United Kingdom)
The 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron was a short-lived Royal Navy squadron of battlecruisers that saw service as part of the Grand Fleet during the First World War.-Creation:...
(BCS) in February 1915 although she was being repaired after an electrical fire at the time. Rear Admiral H.L.A. Hood took command of the 3rd BCS on 27 May 1915. The 1st and 3rd BCS sortied in response to the German bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft
Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft
The Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft was a naval battle fought during the First World War between the German Empire and the British Empire in the North Sea....
on 24–25 April 1916, but failed to locate the German ships in heavy weather.
Battle of Jutland
At the end of May 1916, the 3rd BCS was temporarily assigned to the Grand Fleet for gunnery practice. On 30 May, the entire Grand Fleet, along with Admiral Beatty's battlecruisers, was ordered to sea to prepare for an excursion by the German High Seas FleetHigh Seas Fleet
The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...
. In order to support Beatty, Admiral Hood took his three battlecruisers ahead of the Grand Fleet. At about 2:30 PM Invincible intercepted a radio message from the British light cruiser , attached to Beatty's Battlecruiser Force, reporting the sighting of two enemy cruisers. This was amplified by other reports of seven enemy ships steering north. Hood interpreted this as an attempt to escape through the Skagerrak
Skagerrak
The Skagerrak is a strait running between Norway and the southwest coast of Sweden and the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea.-Name:...
and ordered an increase in speed to 22 kn (43.1 km/h) at 3:11 and steered East-Southeast to cut off the fleeing ships. Twenty minutes later Invincible intercepted a message from Beatty reporting five enemy battlecruisers in sight and later signals reporting that he was engaging the enemy on a south-easterly course. At 4:06 Hood ordered full speed and a course of south-southeast in an attempt to converge on Beatty. At 4:56, with no British ships in sight, Hood requested Beatty's course, position and speed, but never received a reply.
Hood continued on course until 5:40 when gunfire was spotted in the direction to which his light cruiser had been dispatched to investigate other gunfire flashes. Chester encountered four light cruisers of Hipper's 2nd Scouting Group and was badly damaged before Hood turned to investigate and was able to drive the German cruisers away from Chester. At 5:53 Invincible opened fire on and the other two Invincibles followed two minutes later. The German ships turned for the south after fruitlessly firing torpedoes at 6:00 and attempted to find shelter in the mist. As they turned Invincible hit Wiesbaden in the engine room and knocked out her engines while Inflexible hit once. The 2nd Scouting Group was escorted by the light cruiser and 31 destroyers of the 2nd and 9th Flotillas and the 12th Half-Flotilla which attacked the 3rd BCS in succession. They were driven off by Hood's remaining light cruiser and the five destroyers of his escort. In a confused action the Germans only launched 12 torpedoes and disabled the destroyer with gunfire. Having turned due west to close on Beatty's ships, the Invincibles were broadside to the oncoming torpedoes, but Invincible turned north, while Inflexible and Indomitable turned south to present their narrowest profile to the torpedoes. All the torpedoes missed, although one passed underneath Inflexible without detonating. As Invincible turned north, her helm jammed and she had to come to a stop to fix the problem, but this was quickly done and the squadron reformed heading west.
At 6:21, with both Beatty and the Grand Fleet converging on him, Hood turned south to lead Beatty's battlecruisers. Hipper's battlecruisers were 9000 yards (8.2 km) away and the Invincibles almost immediately opened fire on Hipper's flagship and . Indomitable hit Derfflinger three times and once, while the Lützow quickly took 10 hits from , Inflexible and Invincible, including two hits below the waterline forward by Invincible that would ultimately doom Hipper's flagship. But at 6:30 Invincible abruptly appeared as a clear target before Lützow and Derfflinger. The two German ships then fired three salvoes each at Invincible, and sank her in 90 seconds. A 305 mm (12-inch) shell from the third salvo struck the roof of Invincibles midships 'Q' turret, flash detonated the magazines below, and the ship blew up and broke in two, killing all but six of her crew of 1,032 officers and men, including Rear-Admiral Hood.
Inflexible and Indomitable remained in company with Beatty for the rest of the battle. They encountered Hipper's battlecruisers only 10000 yards (9.1 km) away as the sun was setting about 8:19 and opened fire. Seydlitz was hit five times before the German battlecruisers were rescued by the appearance of the pre-dreadnought battleships of Rear Admiral Mauve and the British shifted fire to the new threat. Three of the predreadnoughts were hit before they too were able to turn into the gloom.
The loss of three battlecruisers at Jutland (the others were and ) led to the force being reorganised into two squadrons, with Inflexible and Indomitable in the 2nd BCS. However, after Jutland there was little significant naval activity for the Invincibles, other than routine patrolling, thanks to the Kaiser's order that his ships should not be allowed to go to sea unless assured of victory. She was refitted in August 1916, where she received additional armour over her magazine and turret roofs. Indomitable was fitted with two flying off ramps fitted above her midships turrets in early 1918.
The end of the war saw the end for many of the older vessels, not least the two remaining Invincible class ships. Both were sent to the Reserve Fleet in 1919, and were paid off in March 1920, before being sold for scrap on 1 December 1921.