HMS Queen Mary
Queen Mary at sea with torpedo net booms folded against her side
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators: |
 Royal Navy
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| Preceded by: | Lion class |
| Succeeded by: | HMS Tiger |
| Built: | 1911–13 |
| In commission: | 1913–16 |
| Completed: | 1 |
| Lost: | 1 |
| History | |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Queen Mary |
| Namesake: | Mary of Teck |
| Ordered: | 1910–11 Naval Programme |
| Builder: | Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, Jarrow |
| Laid down: | 6 March 1911 |
| Launched: | 20 March 1912 |
| Completed: | August 1913 |
| Commissioned: | 4 September 1913 |
| Fate: | Sunk at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Battlecruiser |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 703 ft 6 in (214.4 m) |
| Beam: | 89 ft 0.5 in (27.1 m) |
| Draught: | 32 ft 4 in (9.9 m) at deep load |
| Installed power: | 75,000 shp (55,927 kW) |
| Propulsion: | 4 shafts, Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, 42 Yarrow boilers |
| Speed: | 28 knots (51.9 km/h; 32.2 mph) |
| Range: | 5,610 nmi (10,390 km; 6,460 mi) at 10 knots (18.5 km/h; 11.5 mph) |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: |
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| Armour: | |
HMS Queen Mary was the last battlecruiser built by the Royal Navy before World War I. The sole member of her class, Queen Mary shared many features with the Lion-class battlecruisers, including her eight 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns. She was completed in 1913 and participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight as part of the Grand Fleet in 1914. Like most of the modern British battlecruisers, she never left the North Sea during the war. As part of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, she attempted to intercept a German force that bombarded the North Sea coast of England in December 1914, but was unsuccessful. She was refitting in early 1915 and missed the Battle of Dogger Bank in January, but participated in the largest fleet action of the war, the Battle of Jutland in mid-1916. She was hit twice by the German battlecruiser Derfflinger during the early part of the battle and her magazines exploded shortly afterwards, sinking the ship.
Her wreck was discovered in 1991 and rests in pieces, some of which are upside down, on the floor of the North Sea. Queen Mary is designated as a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 as it is the grave of 1,266 officers and men.
Queen Mary was ordered, together with the four battleships of the King George V class, under the 1910–11 Naval Programme. As was the usual pattern of the time, only one battlecruiser was ordered per naval programme. She differed from her predecessors of the Lion class in the distribution of her secondary armament and armour and in the location of the officers' quarters. Every capital ship since the design of the battleship HMS Dreadnought in 1905 had placed the officers' quarters closer to their action stations amidships; after complaints from the Fleet, Queen Mary was the first battlecruiser to restore the quarters to their traditional place in the stern. In addition, she was the first battlecruiser to mount a sternwalk.
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