The Armoured Cruiser HMS Defence: A case-study in assessing the Royal Navy shipwrecks of the Battle of Jutland (1916) as an archaeological resource

This paper presents the findings from a survey of one of the shipwrecks of the Battle of Jutland, and is extracted from a longer currently unpublished report which examines the six known Royal Navy wrecks. While all of the wrecks yielded unique insights into the battle, Defence was a particularly surprising case. The extant remains of this wreck showed for the first time how the ship was destroyed and explains what some eyewitnesses reported at the time. Intact and unsalvaged, it is a source of much valuable archaeological and historical data. © 2012 The Author. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2012 The Nautical Archaeology Society