HMS Lion (1910)

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	25 November 1909, Devonport Dockyard
Launched:	6 August 1910
Commissioned:	4 June 1912
Fate:	Sold for scrap
Struck:	1924
General Characteristics
Displacement:	26,250 tons standard/29,680 tons full load
Length:	700 ft (213 m)
Beam:	88.6 ft (27 m)
Draught:	27.5 ft (8.4 m)
Propulsion:	Parsons geared steam turbines, 4 shafts, 42 boilers, 70,000 shp (52 MW)
Speed:	27.5 knots (51 km/h)
Range:	5,610 nautical miles (10,390 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement:	997–1,267
Armament:	8 x 13.5 in (343 mm) guns, 16 x 4 in (102 mm) guns, 2 x 21 in (533 mm) submerged torpedo tubes
Armour	Belt: 9 in Bulkheads: 4 in Barbettes: 9 in Turrets: 9 in Decks: 2.5 in

HMS Lion was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy launched in 1910, the lead ship of her class. She was originally constructed with her foremast and spotting top behind her forefunnel; the heat and fumes made access to the spotting top difficult and after her initial trials she was rebuilt with the foremast and fore funnel switched in position. In World War I she fought at the battle of Heligoland Bight, 28 August 1914, and served as David Beatty's flagship at the battles of Dogger Bank, 24 January 1915 and Jutland, 31 May 1916, and was sold for breaking in 1924 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.

At Dogger Bank she was seriously damaged by shellfire and took no part in the battle after 11:00; previous to this she did score a somewhat lucky hit on Seydlitz which burned out the latter's two rear turrets and gave the Germans an insight into magazine safety that would bear fruit at Jutland, where the German battlecruisers, in spite of taking a pounding, proved immune to the kind of magazine explosions which sank three of their British counterparts.

HMS Lion burns at the battle of Jutland.

At Jutland she was hit by a 12 inch (305 mm) salvo from the Lützow which blew the roof off of the "Q" turret. Dozens of marines were killed, but a far larger catastrophe was averted when Major Francis Harvey, the mortally wounded turret commander, ordered the magazine doors shut and the magazine itself flooded, thereby preventing the fickle cordite propellant from setting off a massive explosion. How close the ship came to destruction was later discovered when several of the gunnery crew had been found dead, with their hands still clutching the magazine door handles. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

See HMS Lion for other ships of the Royal Navy with this name.