 On 31 May 1916 Princess Royal was the flagship of the 1st BCS , under command of Rear Admiral Osmond Brock , which had put to sea with the rest of the Battlecruiser Fleet , led by Vice @-@ Admiral Beatty in Lion , to intercept a sortie by the High Seas Fleet into the North Sea . The British were able to decode the German radio messages and left their bases before the Germans put to sea . Hipper 's battlecruisers spotted the Battlecruiser Fleet to their west at 3 : 20 pm , but Beatty 's ships did not spot the Germans to their east until 3 : 30 . Almost immediately afterward , at 3 : 32 , he ordered a course change to east south @-@ east to position himself astride the German 's line of retreat and called his ships ' crews to action stations . Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard , away from the British , to assume a south @-@ easterly course , and reduced speed to 18 knots ( 33 km / h ; 21 mph ) to allow three light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group to catch up . With this turn Hipper was falling back on the High Seas Fleet , then about 60 miles ( 97 km ) behind him . Around this time Beatty altered course to the east as it was quickly apparent that he was still too far north to cut off Hipper . 
