|
| Career
| 
|
| Ordered:
|
|
| Laid down:
| 6 March 1911
|
| Launched:
| 20 March 1912
|
| Commissioned:
| August 1913
|
| Fate:
| Exploded and sunk at Jutland on 31 May 1916
|
| General Characteristics
|
| Displacement:
| 26,540 tons standard/31,400 tons full load
|
| Length:
| 703 ft (214 m)
|
| Beam:
| 89 ft (27.1 m)
|
| Draught:
| 28 ft (8.5 m)
|
| Propulsion:
| Parsons geared steam turbines, 4 shafts, 42 boilers, 70,000 shp (75,000 shp for Queen Mary)
|
| Speed:
| 27.5 knot
|
| Range:
| 5,610 nautical miles at 10 knots
|
| Complement:
| 997 1,275
|
| Armament:
| Eight 13.5 inch guns, sixteen 4 inch guns, two 21 inch submerged torpedo tubes
|
HMS Queen Mary was a Royal Navy Lion-class battlecruiser, armed with eight 13.5 inch (343 mm) guns, displacing 27,000 tons, and capable of steaming at 28 knots (52 km/h). She was under the command of Captain Cecil .I. Prowse at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. She was hit by shells from SMS Seydlitz and exploded. All but nine (some sources say twenty) of her 1,275 crew were lost (two of the survivors were picked up by German ships). Moritz von Egidy, captain of the Seydlitz, wrote:
- Soon the British light cruisers came in view, and behind them dense clouds of smoke. Then tripod masts and huge hulls loomed over the horizon. There they were again, our friends from Dogger Bank. At 1545 hours we opened fire. After a short time, HMS Indefatigable blew up, followed 20 minutes later by HMS Queen Mary, our target as Tactical Number Three. The spectacle was overwhelming, there was a moment of complete silence, then the calm voice of a gunnery observer announced "Queen Mary blowing up", at once followed by the order "Shift target to the right" given by the gunnery officer in the same matter-of-fact tone as at normal gunnery practice. [1] (http://www.gwpda.org/naval/jut01.htm)
She should not be confused with the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary, though both were named after Mary of Teck.
