One More Asia-Related Annivesary this year – The Dogger Bank Incident – When the Russians Thought British Fishermen were Japanese

Of course 2014 is the centenary of the start of World War One (and I don’t need to plug the Penguin China WW1-China series of e-books again surely – but, oh well, here we go) and of course 110 years since the start of the Russo-Japanese War (which I’ve blogged about here). One other anniversary comes in October – that of the bizarre Dogger Bank Incident – never heard of it? Here’s what strangely happened…..

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 Russian Baltic Fleet mistook some British fishing boats in the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea for the Imperial Japanese Navy (rather a long way from home!) and fired on them. Russian warships also fired on each other in the chaos of the melée.^. Three British fishermen died and a number were wounded. One sailor and a priest aboard a Russian cruiser caught in the crossfire were also killed. The incident almost led to war between Britain and Russia. Seems the Russian ships were steaming through the North Sea to eventually get to Port Arthur to fight the Japanese. Thinking the Japanese Navy had found out about this and decided to steam to the North Sea first for a sneak attack they got jittery and sunk some British fishing smacks!

Quite a bizarre story and a weird bit of naval history and an odd footnote to the Russo-Japanese War….More on Wikipedia here

For those who like anniversaries, and naval history, the Dogger Bank incident happened on the 99th anniversary of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar

A statue erected in Hull (the British fishermen’s home port) by public subscription to the memory of George Henry Smith (skipper) and William Richard Legget (third hand), of the steam-trawler CRANE, who lost their lives through the action of the Russian Baltic Fleet in the North Sea, 22 October 1904, and Walter Whelpton, skipper of the trawler MINO, who died through shock, May 1905.