On 21 October 1904, on the eve of the 99th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, warships from the Baltic fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy, under the command of Admiral Rozhestvensky, entered the North Sea. They were on a war footing, and later, in the evening of the same day, the Russians bore down on the trawlers of Hull's Gamecock fishing fleet. Powerful searchlights illuminated the seas and the warships opened fire. For 20 minutes, the unarmed fishing vessels were subjected to an unrelenting bombardment. The steam trawler Crane received the heaviest hits: skipper George Smith and mate John Leggott were decapitated by the shells which smashed into their vessel. The Crane eventually sank, and the rest of the crew were rescued by the trawler Gull, but two other fishing vessels, Mouleim and Mino, which were also subject to heavy fire, were badly damaged yet stayed afloat. The order to cease fire came just a few minutes before 1 a.m. and the Russian warships hurried off into the night towards the English Channel without pausing to inspect the carnage they had created. Meanwhile, the stunned crews of the Gamecock trawler fleet gave up fishing, stowed away their gear, and steamed off in great haste, heading for the Humber and their home port of Hull.

The Dogger Bank incident, or ‘Russian Outrage’, as it became known, was a tragic mistake. Russia was not at war with Britain but with Japan. Russia’s Baltic fleet, consisting of 42 warships of varying age and size, was on the first leg of what was to be an 18,000 mile voyage to the Far East, the intention being to reinforce the navy vessels already there that had endured a series of serious setbacks in their nation's vicious conflict with Japan. To that date the Japanese had surprised and outwitted the Russians in many actions and Rozhestvensky and his command – expecting attack at almost any time on their voyage, despite the great distances involved – had mistaken these civilian trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats.

The repercussions of the attack were immediate and global, the British media were incensed; there was talk of declaring war on Russia and of the Royal Navy attacking this fleet, but in the event Rozhestvensky and his ironclad armada were left to continue their convoluted cruise to the Far East.