Dogger Bank

Dogger Bank is an extensive sandbank, around 17,610 sq km, in the central North Sea between Great Britain and Denmark ^[1] . Important fisheries are located there, notably for cod and red herring. ^[2]

It is also notable for the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915, where an important battle was fought in World War I. On the 23 January 1915 Rear-Admiral Hipper of the German Fleet sailed from the Jade with the 1st and 2nd Scouting Groups of three battlecruisers, the large armored cruiser Blücher, and four light cruisers intending to invade the Dogger Bank and attack any British light forces in the region. On the British side, the battle initially involved the light cruiser Aurora, one of the first Royal Navy cruisers to operate an aircraft with a runway being fitted over the forecastle. The hope at the time was was to use the aircraft to intercept zeppelins, which had been invading the Dogger Bank. However, as was shown in the battle, the aircraft could not climb fast enough, and later on the runway was removed. The Aurora was joined later in the battle by the a small fleet consisting of the Lion, the Tiger, the Princess Royal, the New Zealand and the Indomitable. In the end the British fleet prevailed, and the Dogger Bank was retaken.^[3]

A second, but far less important "Battle of Dogger Bank" involving Greenpeace activists occurred in August 2004^[4]

On 21 October 1904 ships of the Russian Baltic Fleet, steaming from Kronstadt to the Pacific Ocean to support Russian forces in the Russo-Japanese War, opened fire on a fleet of thirty or so British trawlers (fishing boats) at Dogger Bank, having mistaken the vessels for Japanese torpedo-boats. Three fishermen were killed, and the blunder provoked a dangerous diplomaticc dispute between the United Kingdom and Russia. In the same incident, Rssian ships also fired on each other.^[5]