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.