&sq=&lang=&file=File:Battlecruiser_HMS_Indefatigable_-_IWM_Q_75281.jpg) HMS Indefatigable
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | Indefatigable |
| Ordered | 1908–1909 Naval Programme |
| Builder | HM Dockyard, Devonport |
| 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 | |
| Length | 590 ft (179.8 m) |
| Beam | 80 ft (24.4 m) |
| Draught | 29 ft 9 in (9.07 m) (deep load) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | 4 × shafts; 2 × steam turbine sets |
| 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) |
| Complement | 800 |
| Armament |
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| Armour |
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HMS Indefatigable was the lead ship of her class of three battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the first decade of the 20th Century. When the First World War began, Indefatigable was serving with the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS) in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully pursued the battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau of the German Imperial Navy as they fled toward the Ottoman Empire. The ship bombarded Ottoman fortifications defending the Dardanelles on 3 November 1914, then, following a refit in Malta, returned to the United Kingdom in February where she rejoined the 2nd BCS.
Indefatigable was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war. Part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, she was hit several times in the first minutes of the "Run to the South", the opening phase of the battlecruiser action. Shells from the German battlecruiser Von der Tann caused an explosion ripping a hole in her hull, and a second explosion hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet (60 m) in the air. Only three of the crew of 1,019 survived.