Dogger Bank

It averages only about 90 metres deep, and in many areas it is significantly shallower than that.

The Dogger Bank, a large sandbank roughly midway between England and Denmark, is in some places less than 15 metres below the surface.

You could dive to the bottom of the Dogger Bank and come back up without a decompression stop.

The southern North Sea, between England and the Netherlands and Belgium, is shallower still, 30 metres, 20 metres, in some areas barely enough depth for large vessels to navigate.

The trawler is working the bottom.

Close enough that a diver could reach the bottom.

Close enough that a trawler's nets can drag up the tools and bones that were left there 8000 years ago.

Every ship that crosses the North Sea, every ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, every container ship from Rotterdam to Felixstowe, every fishing trawler working the Dogger Bank passes over this drowned world.

In the months after Anchorhead's fall, reports emerged offshore, fishermen describing sudden silences, nets pulled empty except for bizarre, deepwater species, divers surfacing early, haunted by auditory hallucinations they would not name aloud.

An entire trawler's radio log, public, transmitted for all to hear, broke into a scrambled series of tones and phonemes before the boat vanished from radar just north of Dogger Bank.

They blamed it, officially, on a rogue wave.

The patterns returned in my hearing, at the edge of rainstorms, behind the clatter of cutlery at a seaside pub, in the shifting pitch of the ambulance siren when it rolled from the cliffs toward the city.

I mean, also in Sweden, it differs a lot.

I mean, you have places where they have... had nuclear plants forever and are extremely acceptable and then you have another area that is not so much acceptable because of lack of experience of that and i think we see that across europe and if you look from a policy point of view i think many countries are doing multi-dimension approach just take uk as an example they invested in hinkley point massive nuclear program And on top of that, they're also building the world's biggest offshore wind farms, the Doggers Bank and the Horn Seas, etc.

So this combination, I think, is quite common.

Even France, I think, is a good example.

Inasmuch as the war is worldwide and we have powerful allies, we should have expected naval influence and pressure be manifested in the oceans in the mediterranean and indeed wherever the enemy is and the seas are finally we should have expected the navy to be to the british empire what it has always been to the empire's heart its safeguard from injury and disruption and the bond that holds it together Each one of these functions has been executed by a navy with triumphant success in the war, and history should show that it is executing them now, as the sea service has accomplished them in all the wars of the past.

part five of two essays on military history strategy and tactics mountain warfare nineteen o nine a naval strategy nineteen seventeen by various this libervox recording is in the public domain part five british navy chapter two the centre of sea power of speedy victory let no man doubt our worst works past now we have found them out behold their navy does at anchor lie and they are ours for now they cannot fly andrew marvel sixteen fifty three of all the theatres of the war on sea or land the north sea is the most important it is vital to all the operations of the allies command of its waters and its outlets is the thing that matters most in that sea is the centre of naval influence it is the key of all the hostilities from either side of it the great protagonists in the struggle look at one another there the great constriction of the blockade is exerted upon germany it is the mare clausum against which she protests geography is there in the scales against her she rebels against british sea supremacy the freedom of the seas is therefore her claim though she is endeavouring to qualify to be the tyrant of them her only outlook towards the outer seas is from the bight of oligoland and the fringe of coast behind the east frisian islands or from the baltic if her ships pass the sound or the belt issuing into the north sea through the skagger but they cannot reach the ocean except through the north passage where the grand fleet holds the guard only isolated raiders bent upon predatory enterprise have stealthily gone that way after nightfall in the southern gate of the north sea through the straits of dover and in the channel the way is barred the guns of dover the dover patrol and certain other deterrents forbid the enemy to adventure in that direction the new engines of naval warfare the mine submarine airship and aeroplane found their first and greatest use in the north sea only by employing craft which hide beneath the water and on rare occasions by destroyers which seek the cover of darkness for local forays have the germans been able to exert their efforts in any waters outside the north sea at the beginning of the war they had raiding cruisers in the pacific and atlantic and a detached squadron in the far east but the british fleet reached out to those regions and aided by the warships of japan and france it drove every vestige of german naval power from the oceans in the north sea therefore sea power has exerted its greatest most vital and most far-reaching effect there the germans if they had possessed the power could have struck a blow which if successful for them would have proved a mortal stroke at the british empire and would have rendered useless all the efforts of the allies millions of men incalculable volumes of guns munitions and stores of every imaginable kind for the use of the greatest armies ever set in the field have entered the french ports solely because the grand fleet holds the guard in the north sea the whole face of the world would have been changed by german naval victory england would have been subjected by invasion and famine if the heart of the empire had been struck what would have been the future of its members if sea communication with the allies had been cut what would have been their fate at the hands of the victors the attacks of sallying cruisers and destroyers upon the coast towns of england the tip and run raids as they have been called and the visits of bomb dropping airships and aeroplanes are the signs of the naval impotence of germany the situation in the north sea is therefore of absorbing interest it may be studied chiefly from the two points of view of the strategy of the opposing fleets and the exercise of the blockade there is a peculiarity in naval warfare which is not found in warfare upon land that a belligerent can withdraw his naval forces entirely from the theatre of war by retaining them as with a threat or in a position of weakness behind the guns of his shore defences nothing of the kind is possible with land armies a general can always find his enemy and attack or invest him and if successful drive him back or cause him to surrender and occupy the territory he has held the germans have chosen the reticent strategy of the sea they have never come out to make a fight to a finish to put the matter to the touch to gain or lose it all the animus pugnandi is wanting to their fleet it was necessary that they should do something they could not lie forever stagnant at kiel and willemshaven they could keep their officers and men in training by making brief cruises in and outside the bide of oligoland they might with luck meet some portion of the grand fleet detached and at a disadvantage in any case they were bold enough to take their chances on occasions always with their fortified ports and mined waters and their submarines under their lee they might succeed in reducing british superiority by the attrition of some encounters such was the genesis of the dogger bank battle of january twenty fourth nineteen fifteen when that gallant officer sir david beatty inflicted a severe defeat upon admiral hipper and drove him back in flight with the loss of the blucher and much other injury the same causes brought the german high-sea fleet under admiral scheer into the great conflict first with sir david beatty and then with the main force of the grand fleet under command of sir john jellicoe on may thirty first nineteen sixteen the events of the great engagement of the jutland bank will not be related here all that it is necessary to note is that the germans had so chosen their time that they were able to avoid decisive battle with sir john jellicoe's fleet by retreating in the failing light of the day and that their adventure availed them nothing to break the blockade or otherwise to modify the impotent position in which they are placed at sea That action operated to the disadvantage of England and her allies in no degree whatever.

The superiority of the British fleet as a fighting engine had been placed beyond dispute.

The mine and the submarine have put an end to the system of naval blockade as practiced by St. Vincent and Cornwallis.

On the next day, the Amphion herself, the first British warship destroyed in the war, fell a victim to the mines she had laid.

This disguised mine-layer had initiated a practice, which has since been many times followed in the war, of throwing mines overboard in the track of pursuing vessels.

It was resorted to by the retreating Germans in the Battle of the Dogger Bank.

Here it may be remarked that the Germans have always claimed the right to subject every consideration to their necessity to win though at the hague conference in nineteen o seven baron marshal von bieberstein the german delegate said that conscience good sense and the duty imposed by the principles of humanity would constitute the most effective guarantee against abuse and he proclaimed je le that german naval officers would always fulfil in the strictest fashion the duties which emanate from the unwritten law of humanity and civilization any technical description of german mines would be out of place here but it may be said that generally they approximate to a spherical shape and are provided with projecting horns almost in the shape of drumsticks concussion with which is calculated to break a small vial within whose contents cause the detonation of the enormous charge of tnt explosive each mine is provided with a sinker which drops to the bottom and is attached to the mine by a cable or sounding line paid out by special mechanism to any desired length whereby the mine may be kept at the intended depth below the surface there are other types of mines and in particular one of cylindrical form containing a prodigious quantity of explosive incapable of the widest destruction this has probably been used only in special situations the ordinary mines can be laid with great rapidity by a specially fitted mine layer provided with rotary gear bringing mine after mine along a special track to the dropping position the drifting mines which the germans at the very beginning of the war set afloat in the main trade route from america to liverpool via the north of ireland can be laid with still greater rapidity when mine-laying in british waters by surface boats was made extremely risky or almost impossible the germans resorted to the employment of submarine mine-layers one of which was exhibited in the thames vessels of this class so far as they are known probably carry a maximum of twelve big mines in six chutes or airlocks the lower mine in each chute being released by means of a lever after which the other drops into its place ready to be let go in the same way The boat exhibited in London and elsewhere was of a rough, rudimentary character, indifferently built, and her speed was probably not more than six or eight knots.

The admirable commander.

Presently I had the honor to meet a lieutenant commander admiral who had retired from the service, but like others, had turned out again at the first flash of the guns, and now commands, he who had great ships erupting at his least signal, a squadron of trawlers for the protection of the Dogger Bank fleet.

At present prices, let alone the chance of the paying submarine, men would fish in much warmer places.

His flagship is a multi-millionaire's private yacht.

We cannot say, however, from this evidence alone, that the sea level then was only sixty feet below ordnance datum, for it is obvious that it may have been considerably lower.

If, as we believe, the southern part of the North Sea was then a wide marsh, the Thames may have followed a winding course of many miles before reaching the sea, then probably far away in the latitude of the Dogger Bank.

This must be borne in mind.

We know the minimum extent of the change of level, but its full amount has to be ascertained from other localities.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Jennifer Painter.

Submerged Forests by Clement Reed.

The Dogger Bank.

for the last fifty years it has been known to geologists that the bed of the north sea yields numerous bones of large land animals belonging in a great part to extinct species these were first obtained by oyster dredgers and later by trawlers fortunately a good collection of them was secured by the british museum where it has been carefully studied by william davies the bones came from two localities one of them close to the norfolk coast off happisberg yielded mainly teeth of elephas meridionalis and its fossils were evidently derived from the pliocene chroma forest bed which in that neighbourhood is rapidly being destroyed by the sea this need not now detain us the other locality is far more extraordinary in the middle of the north sea lies the extensive shoal known as the dogger bank about sixty or seventy miles from the nearest land this shoal forms a wide irregular plateau having an area nearly as big as denmark over it for the most part the sea has a depth of only fifty or sixty feet all round its edge it slopes somewhat abruptly into deeper water about one hundred and fifty feet in the south east and west but much deeper on the north this peculiar bank has been explained as an eastward submerged continuation of the oolite escarpment of yorkshire or alternatively as a mere shoal accumulated through the effects of some tidal eddy but neither of these explanations will hold for oolitic rocks do not occur there and the bank has a core quite unlike the sand of the north sea when trawlers first visited the dogger bank its surface seems to have been strewn with large bones of land animals and loose masses of peat known to the fishermen as moor log and there were also many erratic blocks in the neighbourhood as all this refuse did much damage to the trawls and bruised the fish the erratics and bones were thrown into deeper water and the large cakes of moorlog were broken in pieces a few of the erratics and some of the bones were however brought to yarmouth as curiosities now the whole surface of the dogger bank has been gone over again and again by the trawlers and very few of the fossil bones are found Unfortunately, no record seems to have been kept as to the exact place where these bones were trawled.

Let's give this place a name because it deserves one.

Geologists and archaeologists call it Doggerland, named after the Dogger Bank, that shallow patch of the North Sea where fishermen have been snagging mammoth bones in their nets for over a century.

But the name is almost too small for what it describes.

This wasn't a sandbar.

Storms and currents have eroded and reworked the very sediments we'd most like to read as a diary.

Different models of glacial rebound and different interpretations of radiocarbon dates can give you slightly different curves.

In some reconstructions, the area that would become Dogger Bank stayed above water as a large island until five or six thousand years ago.

In others, it fragments earlier.

And we now know that there was once a widespread human occupation there.

We give it the name Doggerland because it centers around the Dogger Bank, which is a famous fishing bank in the North Sea.

So paint us a picture of Doggerland, which is a bizarre name.

What was out there? Now it's the North Sea, but like you said, there's a bank there that is very shallow so that there was some kind of cataclysmic flood that made this area flood.