THE RUNAWAY RAIDERS
[“Practically the whole fast cruiser force of the German Navy,
including some great ships vital to their fleet and utterly
irreplaceable, has been risked for the passing pleasure of killing
as many English people as possible, irrespective of sex, age or
condition, in the limited time available. Whatever feats of arms
the German Navy may hereafter perform, the stigma of the
baby-killers of Scarborough will brand its officers and men while
sailors sail the seas.” So wrote the First Lord of the Admiralty
(Mr. Winston S. Churchill) on December 20th, 1914, in reference to
the German raid on Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools on
December 16th. In that cowardly bombardment of unprotected places,
the Huns killed more than a hundred men, women, and children in the
Hartlepools alone, and altogether the casualties numbered more than
six hundred. This story is based on the narrative of Sapper W.
Hall, R.E., one of the few English soldiers who have been under an
enemy’s fire on English soil. Sapper Hall was badly wounded.]
It is just a fortnight to-day since the German warships came up out of
the mist, bombarded Hartlepool, wrecked many of the houses, killed a lot
of defenceless women, children and men, and then tore away into the mist
as hard as they could steam. Our own warships nearly got up with them,
and if it had not been for the mist, never one of those vessels which
were so valiant in bombarding helpless towns would have got back to
Germany.
A great deal of confusion has been caused in telling the story of the
raids on the Hartlepools, the two places being hopelessly mixed up. They
are, as a matter of fact, quite separate towns, with separate mayors and
corporations.
Hartlepool itself, where we now are, is on the coast, facing the sea;
West Hartlepool is two miles inland. Both towns were bombarded, but it
is hereabouts that most of the damage by shells was done, and many
children and grown-up people killed. It was just over there, too, that
eight Territorials were standing on the front, watching the firing, when
a shell struck them and killed seven of the men and wounded the
eighth.[2]
It was soon after eight o’clock in the morning when we rushed out of our
billets into the streets, and, looking seaward, we saw warships firing.
In our billets we had heard the booming of guns, and supposing that it
was our own warships practising or fighting, we had hurried out to see
the fun. A few seconds was enough to tell us that there was no fun in
it, but that this was a bombardment in deadly earnest by the enemy.
The German ships were easily visible from the shore, and did not seem to
be very far away--about two miles. They were firing rapidly, and there
was a deafening noise as the shells screamed and burst--the crashing of
the explosions, the smashing of immense numbers of window-panes by the
concussion, and the thudding of the shells and fragments against walls
and buildings.
Coming so unexpectedly, the bombardment caused intense excitement and
commotion, and men, women and children rushed into the streets to see
what was happening--the worst thing they could do, because the splinters
of shell, horrible jagged fragments, were flying all about and killing
and maiming the people they struck. A number of little children who had
rushed into the streets, as children will, were killed or wounded.
As soon as we realised what was happening, we rushed back and got our
rifles and hurried into the street again, and did what we could; but
rifles were absolutely useless against warships, and the incessant
bursting of shells and the scattering of fragments and bullets made it
most dangerous to be in the open.
Shells were striking and bursting everywhere, wrecking houses, ploughing
into the ground, and battering the concrete front of the promenade.
The houses hereabouts, overlooking the sea, were big and easy targets
for the Germans, who blazed away like madmen, though they must have been
in terror all the time when they thought that their cannonading was sure
to fetch British warships up. How thankful they must have felt for that
protecting mist!
The Hartlepool Rovers’ Football Ground is very near the sea and the
lighthouse, and it came under heavy fire. One of our men, Sapper Liddle,
was near the wall of the ground when a shell burst and mortally wounded
him, injuring him terribly. It was not possible to get at him and bring
him into hospital for a long time, but when he was brought here
everything that was humanly possible was done for him. He lingered for
a few hours, then died.
Meanwhile, death and destruction were being dealt out all around us, and
the land batteries were making such reply as they could to the Germans’
heavy guns. This reply was a very plucky performance, for Hartlepool is
not a fortified place in anything like the real meaning of the word, and
our light guns were no match for the weapons of the German
battle-cruisers.
As it happened, no damage was done to the guns; but fearful mischief was
caused to buildings near us. A shell struck the Baptist Chapel fair and
square on the front, and drove a hole in it big enough for the passage
of a horse and cart; then it wrecked the inside and went out at the
other end of the chapel, again making a huge hole.
House after house was struck and shattered, in some cases people being
buried in the ruins. Some of the houses are very old, and pretty well
collapsed when a shell struck them and burst.
While the bombardment was in progress we were doing our best, but that
could not be much. There was not much cause for laughter, but I remember
that a shell came and burst near us, and made us see the humour of a
little incident. The explosion itself did no actual damage, but the
concussion and force of it were so violent that a sapper was jerked up
into the air and came down with a crash. He picked himself up and
scuttled as hard as he could make for shelter.
The firing was so sudden and so fierce that it was begun and finished
almost before it was possible to realise that it had taken place. Most
of the men of Hartlepool were at work when the bombardment started, and
some of them were killed at their work, or as they were rushing home to
see to their wives and children, while some were killed as they fled for
safety.
The streets were crowded with fugitives during the bombardment, and it
was owing to this that so many people were killed and wounded. The
shells burst among them with awful results.
While the Germans were firing point-blank at the buildings facing the
sea, and deliberately killing inoffensive people, they were also
bombarding West Hartlepool, and doing their best to blow up the
gasworks, destroy the big shipbuilding yards there, and set fire to the
immense stacks of timber which are stored in the yards.
People were killed who were five or six miles from the guns of the
warships, and in one street alone in West Hartlepool seven persons,
mostly women, were killed. Several babies were killed in their homes,
and little children were killed as they played in the streets.
A good deal has been said about the number of shells that were fired
from the German warships, and some people had put down a pretty low
total; but from what I saw, I should think that certainly five hundred
shells of all sorts were fired by these valiant Germans, who knew that
they were perfectly safe so far as the shore was concerned, and took
mighty good care not to be caught by British ships of their own size and
power; but that will surely come later, and the men of the North will
get their own back.
I cannot say anything about the actual defences, or what the military
did; but the few troops who were here did their best, and a couple of
destroyers bore a brave part in the affair.
A shell fell in the lines of the Royal Engineers, and several dropped in
the lines of the 18th Service Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry.
It was very quickly known, as I have mentioned, that seven out of eight
men of the Durhams, who were watching the firing--thinking, like
everybody else, that it was some sort of battle practice, till they
learned the real truth--had been killed by the explosion of a shell, and
that the eighth man had been wounded; but there were several other cases
of men being wounded which were not known about until later, because of
the great difficulties of discovering the men amongst the ruins which
the shell-fire had caused.
From the moment the bombardment began there was an awful commotion, and
the noise grew until it was simply deafening. The whole town literally
shook, and while the firing lasted there was a tremendous and continuous
vibration--everything shivered and rattled. One shell struck the wall of
the football ground, which faces the sea; not far away a hole was dug in
the ground by one of the very first of the shells that were fired; the
fine old church of St. Hilda was damaged, and the side of the rectory
was simply peppered by a bursting shell.
In the particular place where I and my chums were, the shells were
coming in a shower, and doing enormous mischief. We could see that
plainly enough. But it was not until later, when the German warships had
steamed away as hard as they could go, that we knew how great the damage
had been, and how many lives had been lost and people wounded.
The German ships fired from one side to begin with, then they turned
round and continued the bombardment from the other side, so they must
have been ready loaded all round. The size of the shots varied from the
12-inch shells, perfect monsters, to the small ones which came so fast
and did so much havoc. The fact that some of the huge shells were found
unexploded after the bombardment proves that ships of great size took
part in the raid.
Some time after the firing began I felt a blow on my thigh, and fell to
the ground, helpless, though I did not know at the time what had
happened. At last, when the firing--which continued for about forty
minutes--ceased, stretcher-bearers and volunteer ambulance workers set
about collecting the wounded, and I was picked up and brought to the
hospital here.
It was then found that I had been struck on the thigh by part of the cap
of a shell, and that I had sustained a compound fracture. The piece of
metal was still sticking in me--you can see it later. It was taken out,
and I was promptly and most kindly looked after, as were all our men who
had been wounded and were brought in. Poor Liddle, as I have told you,
was not discovered for some time; then he was found and brought here,
and died late at night, in spite of all the efforts that were made to
save him. He had a real soldier’s funeral--just as had the rest of the
soldiers who had been killed.
As soon as the bombardment was over the people set to work to collect
the dead as well as save the wounded, and both were heavy tasks; but
there
[Illustration:
[_To face p. 188._
“THE ‘HOGUE’ BEGAN TO TURN TURTLE. THE FOUR IMMENSE FUNNELS BROKE AWAY”
(p. 173).]
were many willing hands. Even in half-an-hour a wonderful difference had
been made in the streets, and those people who had been rushing towards
the country for safety began to return. They brought in reports of
losses which had been suffered in the outskirts through shells; but, as
I have said, the worst cases of all were just about here.
One house was completely demolished, and the father, mother, and
half-a-dozen children were killed, so that home and family were wiped
out in an instant. One part of the Old Town is so utterly destroyed that
it is called “Louvain,” and if you look at the houses there you will
find that they are just heaps of rubbish and ruins, with beds and
furniture and so on, buried.
Shells had exploded in the streets, in houses, fields, at the gasworks,
in shipyards--anywhere and everywhere--and one big thing stuck itself in
a house and is kept as a relic. Another crashed through four railway
waggons, and another shell, which travelled low on the ground, went
through several sets of the steel metals on the railway, which shows the
fearful penetrative power of the projectile.
If the Germans had had their way, no doubt this place would have been
wiped out altogether. They made a dead set at the gasworks, but did not
do a great deal of mischief there, though it meant that that night a lot
of people had to burn candles instead of gas. And though more than a
hundred people were killed, and the Germans fondly supposed that they
had struck terror into the place, they had done nothing of the sort.
The residents were soon clearing up the ruins and settling down again as
if nothing had happened. The most pitiful of all the tasks was that of
dealing with the dead and wounded children, and the remembrance of the
sad sights will be the best of all inspirations for some of our fellows
when the day comes on which they will get their own back from the
Germans.
It was not long before we learned that at about the same time as we were
being shelled at Hartlepool, German warships had appeared off the
entirely undefended places of Whitby and Scarborough. They call these
old fishing ports fortified, but that is an absolute untruth, and they
know it. But the Germans were out to kill and destroy, and they did both
in a manner which showed that they had made calculations to a minute,
and that their spies had been long at work.
At Scarborough the raiders did a lot of damage before they ran away.
They had prepared one of their boasted surprises for us, and we got it;
but that was nothing to the surprise we gave them on Christmas morning
at Cuxhaven--a real fortified place--and nothing, I hope and believe, to
the surprises that our Navy has in store for the German naval runaways.
You ask how long shall I be in hospital.
That is hard to tell; but I have been here two weeks already, and I
suppose that I shall be here for at least six weeks longer.
I keep the piece of shell which struck me, in a bit of brown paper in
the cupboard near the head of the bed. I cannot rise to get it myself,
but if you will open the little door you will find it. It’s the sort of
thing which caused such havoc in the Hartlepools when the German
warships came and bombarded us.