Beatty immediately swung off to the southeast in the hope of getting between the German squadron and its base; but the German commander, Vice Admiral von Hipper, changed course correspondingly, and the two squadrons continued on courses nearly parallel but somewhat converging until, at about 3.45 p. m., fire was opened on both sides, the range at that time being approximately nine miles. About ten minutes after the battle was fully joined, the _Indefatigable_, the rear ship of the British column, was struck by a broadside from one or more of the enemy ships, and blew up; and twenty minutes later the _Queen Mary_, latest and most powerful of the British battle cruisers, met the same fate. The suddenness and completeness of the disaster to these two splendid ships has not yet been explained and perhaps never will be. Their elimination threw the advantage of numbers actually engaged from the British to the German side, but very shortly afterward the leading ships of Rear Admiral Thomas's dreadnought division came within range and opened fire (Plate II), thus throwing the superiority again to the British side. For the next half hour or thereabouts, Von Hipper's five battle cruisers were pitted against four battle cruisers and four dreadnoughts, and Beatty reports that their fire fell off materially, as would naturally be the case. They appear, however, to have stood up gallantly under the heavy punishment to which they must have been subjected. Beatty was drawing slowly ahead, though with little prospect of being able to throw his force across the enemy's van, as he had hoped to do, his plan being not only to cut the Germans off from their base, but to "cap" their column and concentrate the fire of his whole force on Von Hipper's leading ships. Had he been able to do this he would have secured the tactical advantage which is the object of all maneuvering in a naval engagement, and would at the same time have compelled Von Hipper to run to the northward toward the point from which Jellicoe was known to be approaching at the highest speed of his dreadnoughts. With this thought in mind, Beatty was holding on to the southward, taking full advantage of his superiority in both speed and gunfire, when a column of German dreadnoughts was sighted in the southeast approaching at full speed to form a junction with Von Hipper's squadron (Plate II). Seeing himself thus outmatched, Beatty made a quick change of plan. There was no longer any hope of carrying out the plan of throwing himself across the head of the German column, but if Von Hipper could not be driven into Jellicoe's arms it was conceivable that he might be led there, and with him the additional force that Von Scheer was bringing up to join him. So Beatty turned to the northward, and, as he had hoped, Von Hipper followed; not, however, until he had run far enough on the old course to effect a junction with Von Scheer, whose battleships fell in astern of the battle cruisers as these last