HMS Princess Royal (1911).
HMS Princess Royal was built for the British Royal Navy before the First World War in response to the Moltke-class battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy and significantly improved on the speed, armament, and armour of earlier battlecruisers. Laid down in 1912 and commissioned in 1913, Princess Royal served in the Battle of Heligoland Bight a month after the war began. During the Battle of Dogger Bank, Princess Royal scored few hits, although one crippled the German armoured cruiser Blücher. Shortly afterward, she became the flagship of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, under the command of Rear-Admiral Osmond Brock. Princess Royal was moderately damaged during the Battle of Jutland and required a month and a half of repairs. Apart from providing distant support during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917, the ship spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols of the North Sea. She was sold for breaking up as scrap in 1922. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battlecruisers of the world.)
