Q&A · 50:34-55:14

Why Beatty's flag signals caused confusion at Dogger Bank

Beatty's captains needed a shared understanding of pursuit and target allocation as well as the signal book.

Question

Is there an illustrated source for the Royal Navy flag signals involved in the Dogger Bank confusion?

Short answer

The individual flags are standard; the important material is the code-book combination and the command context, especially Beatty's failure to explain his intended actions beforehand.

Notes

Royal Navy signal flags represented letters and numbers whose combinations referred officers to a code book. Understanding the Dogger Bank confusion therefore requires the ordered combination and the command context. Beatty had not established how his captains should act during a general chase or allocate targets when ships counted the enemy line from different positions or could not see every opponent. That ambiguity contributed to British ships concentrating on Blücher while other targets escaped. Confused target allocation could also leave a ship mistaking another ship's shell splashes for its own and correcting its fire from the wrong observations. At Jutland, the Fifth Battle Squadron continued south after the battlecruisers turned because the turn had not been properly passed on.