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HMS INDEFATIGABLE
Indefatigable Class Battlecruiser
This page is not meant to be a comprehensive history of HMS INDEFATIGABLE., but a record of sailors of the ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY who served in her, photos they took and stories they may have shared with their families.
HMS Indefatigable was the lead ship of her class of three battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy in the early part of the 20th century. When the First World War began, Indefatigable was serving with the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully pursued the battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau of the Imperial German 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 Battlecruiser Squadron.
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.
De QUETTEVILLE, Stanley Eng. Lt, RCN MPK: 31 May 1916
HMS INDEFATIGABLE sinking during the Battle of Jutland
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In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice
Lest We Forget
