5. The Dogger Bank Incident
Sometimes being trigger-happy can get you in serious trouble. There is an interesting psychological phenomenon called “Contagious Gunfire,” which occurs when one person decides to open fire and everyone else immediately decides to follow suit, even when no one knows quite what they’re shooting at. This is precisely what happened to the Russian “Second Pacific Squadron,” or Pacific Fleet.
During the Japanese-Russian war, the fleet was sailing in the North Sea when the fleet encountered a number of British Fishing boats. The British fishermen calmly signaled to the Russians that they were just regular guys- and in no way part of any armed forces. The Russians watched the signals carefully, thought about it, and decided they were dealing with several Japanese torpedo boats. They then opened fire with everything they had, filling the air with the clamor of every gun in the fleet. That was when things got crazy.
Wild rumors began circulating among the fleet that Japanese torpedoes had hit one ship, and that another had been boarded by the Japanese and was abandoning ship. When the smoke cleared, they realized they had been firing at each other.
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