On the evening of 15th December, seven days after the Battle off the Falkland Islands, a German raiding force steamed westward from Heligoland. We do not yet know exactly what ships were included in it, but probably Rear-Admiral Funke had with him most of the vessels which took part in the former raid, as well as the Derfflinger. Before daybreak, when a thick, cold mist lay low on the coast, the squadron arrived off the mouth of the Tees. There the forces were divided. The Derfflinger and the Von der Tann, with another vessel, probably the Bluecher, were sent north against the Hartlepools; while two light cruisers, along with, probably, the Seydlitz and the Graudenz, sailed south against Scarborough.
According to the laws of war, which Germany has undertaken to recognize, unfortified towns may not be bombarded. Nobody in his senses could possibly call Scarborough a fortified town. On a green promontory there are the picturesque ruins of a castle, now crumbling to decay, and formerly there was a battery below it. But when the German ships appeared off Scarborough, its only weapon of defence was an old 60-pounder Russian gun captured in the Crimea, and sent to the town as an interesting relic. True, there was a wireless station on a hill behind the town, and some battalions of the new army were in the neighbourhood. Otherwise the Germans had not the shadow of an excuse for attacking Scarborough.
A few minutes before eight o'clock, when the all-the-year-round bathers were taking their morning dip, four strange warships were seen looming through the mist, and a few moments later the booming of guns was heard. Shells began to crash on the coastguard station and in the castle grounds, and shortly afterwards the ships steamed in front of the town to within five hundred yards of the shore. Quite unmolested, they proceeded to bombard every large object within sight. The Grand Hotel was struck by three shells; churches, public buildings, and hospitals—one of them flying the Red Cross flag—were hit, and large numbers of private houses were wrecked. Many shells were directed against the wireless station and the gas works.
For forty minutes the bombardment continued, and probably some five hundred shots were fired. Eighteen persons, chiefly women and children, were killed, and about seventy were wounded. One house was struck by a shell which glanced off a railway bridge about twenty yards distant. The whole place crumpled up as though struck by a giant's hammer, and a child of nine, another of five, the mother, and a soldier son, were instantly killed, while the father and another son were severely wounded. The number of narrow escapes was great. In some cases roofs were torn off and walls crushed in, yet the occupants remained unharmed. By a quarter to nine all was over, and the hulls of the raiding vessels disappeared round the castle promontory.
Some fifteen miles north of Scarborough is the pleasant seaside resort of Whitby, built on both sides of the estuary of the little river Esk. Those of you who have spent your holidays in the town will remember the red-tiled cottages of the fishermen, the gray walls of the quays and houses, the little bridge, and the ships sailing up the river at high tide. Most of the town is on the West Cliff, and across the river, on a high, treeless headland, are the roofless ruins of an abbey on the site of an older monastic building, which has always been regarded as the cradle of English song. It was on this spot that the first English poem composed in England flowed from the lips of Caedmon, a humble man who, in the seventh century, tended the cows and slept in the byre of the monastery, which was then under the rule of the abbess Hilda. For this reason Whitby is sacred all the world over to lovers of English literature. This quiet seaside place, without a vestige of fortification, was now to receive a visit of destruction from the sailors of a nation which has always professed to reverence art, learning, and literature.
About nine o'clock the coastguard at Whitby saw through the haze two warships rapidly steaming up from the south. Ten minutes later they began firing at the coastguard station on West Cliff, where many townsfolk gathered to watch the bombardment, which continued for a quarter of an hour. Some of the shots damaged the coastguard station, destroyed the western gateway of the ancient abbey on the East Cliff, and wrecked a number of private houses. Shells fell at Ruswarp, a mile inland, and damaged a school at Meadowfield. Happily, the scholars, who had just begun their morning lessons, were unhurt. In all, three persons were killed and two were injured. After the bombardment the cruisers turned northwards, and were quickly lost to view in the haze.
