The renewed gunfire gained Beatty's attention, so he turned his battlecruisers westward. At 21:09, he sighted the German battlecruisers, and drew to within before opening fire at 20:20. In the ensuing melee, was hit several times; one shell struck the rear gun turret and other hit the ship's bridge. The entire bridge crew was killed and several men in the conning tower were wounded. The German ships returned fire with every gun available, and at 21:32 hit both Lion and Princess Royal in the darkness. The maneuvering of the German battlecruisers forced the leading I Battle Squadron to turn westward to avoid collision. This brought the pre-dreadnoughts of II Battle Squadron directly behind the battlecruisers, and prevented the British ships from pursuing the German battlecruisers when they turned southward. The British battlecruisers opened fire on the old battleships; the German ships turned southwest to bring all of their guns to bear against the British ships. By 22:15, Hipper was finally able to transfer to , and then ordered his ships to steam at towards the head of the German line. Only and were in condition to comply; and could make at most , and so these ships lagged behind. and were in the process of steaming to the front of the line when the ships passed close to , which forced the ship to drastically slow down to avoid collision. This forced , , and to turn to port, which led them into contact with the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron; at a range of , the cruisers on both sides pummeled each other. Ludwig von Reuter decided to attempt to lure the British cruisers towards and . Nearly simultaneously, the heavily damaged British cruisers broke off the attack. As the light cruisers were disengaging, a torpedo fired by struck , and the ship exploded. The German formation fell into disarray, and in the confusion, lost sight of . The ship was no longer able to keep up with s 22 knots, and so detached herself to proceed to the Horns Reef lighthouse independently. At 00:45, was attempting to thread her way through the British fleet, but was sighted by the dreadnought and noted as a "ship or Destroyer". Agincourts captain did not want to risk giving away his ship's position, and so allowed her to pass. By 01:12, had managed to slip through the British fleet, and she was able