German battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Franz von Hipper sortied to clear the Dogger Bank of any British fishing boats or small craft that might be there to collect intelligence on German movements. But the British were reading their coded messages and sailed to intercept them with a larger force of British battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Beatty, which included New Zealand. Contact was initiated at 07:20 on the 24th when the British light cruiser Arethusa spotted the German light cruiser . By 07:35 the Germans had spotted Beatty's force and Hipper ordered a turn to the south at , believing that this would suffice if the ships that he saw to his northwest were British battleships and that he could always increased speed to 's maximum speed of if they were British battlecruisers. Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to make all practicable speed to catch the Germans before they could escape. New Zealand and Indomitable were the slowest of Beatty's ships and gradually fell behind the newer and faster battlecruisers, but New Zealand was able to open fire on Blücher by 09:35. She continued to engage Blücher after the other, faster, battlecruisers had switched targets to the German battlecruisers. After about an hour New Zealand had knocked out Blüchers forward turret and Indomitable began to fire on her as well at 10:31. Two 12-inch shells pierced her armoured deck and exploded in an ammunition room at 10:35. This started a fire amidships that destroyed her two port turrets and the concussion damaged her engines so that her speed had dropped to and her steering gear jammed. At 10:48 Beatty ordered Indomitable to attack her. But due to a combination of a mistake by Beatty's flag lieutenant in signalling and heavy damage to Beatty's flagship , which had knocked out her radio and caused enough smoke to obscure her signal halyards so that Beatty could not communicate with his ships that caused the rest of the battlecruisers, temporarily under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Gordon Moore in New Zealand, to believe that that signal applied to them. So they turned away from Hipper's main body and engaged Blücher. New Zealand fired 147 shells at Blücher before she capsized and sank at 12:07 after being torpedoed. Battle of Jutland On 31 May 1916 the 2nd BCS consisted of New Zealand (Flagship of Rear Admiral William Christopher Pakenham) and Indefatigable as