Dogger Bank incident

This article is about a 1904 Russian attack on British fishermen. For the naval battles, see Battle of Dogger Bank (disambiguation).
"North Sea Incident" redirects here. For other uses, see 2023 North Sea incident.

British postcard depicting the Russian warships firing on the fishing vessels

The Dogger Bank incident (also known as the North Sea Incident, the Russian Outrage or the Incident of Hull) occurred on the night of 21/22 October 1904, when the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy mistook civilian British fishing trawlers from Kingston upon Hull in the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea for Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo boats[1] and fired on them, also firing on each other in the chaos of the melée.[2]

Two British fishermen died, six more were injured, one fishing vessel was sunk, and five more boats were damaged.[3] On the Russian side, one sailor and a Russian Orthodox priest aboard the cruiser Aurora were killed by friendly fire.[3] "Damage to the Aurora was concealed ... and only discovered by the deciphering of a wireless message intercepted at [the British] Felixstowe station. It was also considered highly significant that no officer from that ship appeared before the Commission, nor were their logs produced."[4] The incident almost led to war between the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire.[5]

  1. ^ Corbett (2015b), pp. 31–35.
  2. ^ Wood (1911), pp. 275–286
  3. ^ a b Corbett (2015b), p. 35.
  4. ^ Corbett (2015b), p. 36.
  5. ^ Connaughton (1988), pp. 247, 250 & 259