In October 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Russia dispatched its Baltic Fleet—renamed the Second Pacific Squadron—on an epic 18,000-mile voyage to the Far East under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky. Swept up in intense paranoia about secret Japanese torpedo boats lurking in European waters, the poorly trained crew was on edge. Late at night on October 21, in thick fog over Dogger Bank in the North Sea, the supply ship Kamchatka reported being attacked by unknown vessels via panicked wireless communications.
Shortly after, the flagship spotted British civilian fishing trawlers from Hull peacefully harvesting cod. Mistaking the innocent fishermen for stealthy Japanese attackers, the panic-stricken Russian warships opened fire. For twenty chaotic minutes, the Baltic Fleet unleashed hundreds of shells, managed to hit their own cruisers, sunk one British trawler, killed two fishermen, and damaged several others.
Amid the fog and madness, wireless operators jammed their own fleet communications with frantic, conflicting warnings. The diplomatic outrage nearly pushed Great Britain into declaring war against Russia, leading British warships to shadow the Russian fleet down the Atlantic. The Dogger Bank incident became a absurd and tragic prelude to the fleet's ultimate, complete destruction at the Battle of Tsushima months later.