Bombardment of the Hartlepools

Iain Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Exactly 100 years today, the towns of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool were attacked by German forces. This is probably the single most momentous day in my constituency’s history, a day which for ever altered civilian life and the way in which modern warfare is conducted. The bombardment of the Hartlepools has been remembered and commemorated ever since, none more so than today, its centenary. A beautiful and poignant ceremony took place in Hartlepool this morning, at the precise time when the shells starting raining down on the innocent people of the town. I particularly want to thank John, Mandy and Charlotte Southcott of the Heugh Gun Battery Trust for their tireless efforts, but there are countless others who made the commemoration events today so special. On behalf of the House, I thank them all.

It is a huge honour for me to be able to mark the centenary in this House and to ensure that Parliament has the chance to reflect on this important event in our country’s history. I am pleased that the Minister is in her place to respond to the debate, and I am particularly touched that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is in his place on the Opposition Front Bench.

By the last weeks of 1914, the great war had been fought for four months. In that time it had descended into stalemate. From Calais to the Swiss border the allied forces and their German counterparts faced each other in dank, dangerous and rat-infested trenches. Countless attacks and raids had brought death and injury to thousands of soldiers, but had not been accompanied by any strategic breakthrough or military advance.

In the space of a few short weeks in that short-lived optimism of summer 1914, Lord Kitchener, the new Secretary of State for War and darling poster boy of the British empire, had been able to raise, from a standing start, the first 100,000 recruits for a land army. German high command feared that the additional substantial resources on the western front, once operational, had the potential to inflict disproportionate damage on the German army. High commands in London, Paris and Berlin were anxious and frustrated, and sought alternative strategies that might give them the upper hand.

In the very week of the bombardment of the Hartlepools, Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was considering a direct attack on Germany by the Royal Navy across the North sea. Rumours had gained ground in England that a German invasion of the south coast was imminent, and Berlin hoped that a bombardment of the north-east coast, using cruisers, might have the dual consequence both of ensuring that Kitchener’s forces would be kept away from the western front and in England to defend against possible invasion, and dispersing the land forces thinly across the coast from Berwick to Brighton, thereby keeping the option of invasion open to Germany.

Those were the origins of the bombardment. The objectives of the mission were clear: a desperate need for a breakthrough against the stalemate of the trenches; a wish to boost the morale of the German people, especially just before Christmas; and a desire to provoke the Royal Navy into a confrontation that might reduce the capacity of the British fleet against its German counterpart. In addition, Germany hoped to inflict damage on Britain’s ports and coastal defences; reduce her industrial capability by damaging capacity and infrastructure; and, in perhaps the first example of mass and dramatic propaganda in modern warfare, demonstrate to the British people in as vivid and horrific a fashion as possible that Germany had more than the means to wage war and, indeed, that it had the technology and guile to wage such war on Britain’s own homeland.

The Hartlepools were an obvious target. West Hartlepool was immensely important for munitions to the war. It had been a leading driver of the industrial revolution and in 1914 still possessed one of the busiest ports in the British Isles as well as significant engineering works used to supply the war effort. Despite their industrial importance, the Hartlepools were rather meekly defended. There were two batteries, one at the Heugh possessing two six-inch guns, and the other 100 yards to the south at the lighthouse, with only one six-inch gun. The authorities clearly never anticipated an attack on the homeland from the sea.

Wednesday 16 December 1914—nine days before Christmas—dawned with heavy mist and fog. It was cold, but without any wind. Visibility was low, giving the German cruisers effective cover to reach 4,000 yards off the coast without being detected. At precisely 8 o’clock, the fire commander at Fairy Cove, about 500 yards from the Heugh battery, received the following message from South Gare battery, about five miles down the coast: “dreadnoughts steaming south”. That was followed immediately by a message from the port war signal station: “Three warships coming in at great speed!” Those three warships were German cruisers: the Seydlitz, the Moltke and the Blücher. Between them they had twenty 11.2-inch guns, eight 8.2-inch guns, eighteen 5.9-inch guns and a whole host of other armaments.

At precisely 8.10 am, the German cruisers opened fire on the Heugh battery. The first round of shells fell beside a low wall that formed the boundary between the battery and the pathway leading to the promenade. The wall, or at least its successor, is still there: I walked past it this morning. The blast from the shell killed Private Theophilus Jones, of the 18th Battalion the Durham Light Infantry. Private Jones was 27 and a teacher at a Leicestershire school, but he was originally from Ashgrove avenue in West Hartlepool. He was on sentry duty that morning. He was the first solder killed on British soil by enemy action in the first world war. Indeed, he was the first soldier to be killed on British soil in warfare since the battle of Culloden in 1746. Almost immediately afterwards, three other men from the 18th DLI—Privates Liddle, Clark and Turner—were also killed.

Tactically, the German plan had been to concentrate the first phase of firepower on the batteries at the Heugh and the lighthouse, in order to put the battery guns out of action, then to switch to firing on industrial and infrastructure targets, such as West Hartlepool’s steelworks, docks, shipyards, gasworks and railway goods and passenger stations. However, the Heugh battery had erected a camouflage extension, giving its height a false impression. That, combined with a low tide, probably had tragic consequences: although the German cruisers failed in their objective of taking out the gun defence, it meant that if the German shells hit too low, hitting the rock of the headland, dangerous fragments of shrapnel ricocheted into the civilian population of old Hartlepool. Any shells that were fired too high sailed over the Heugh battery and into the densely populated area of West Hartlepool.

Shrapnel from the second round of shells struck Hilda Horsley—Horsley is such a strong Hartlepool name and it is still shared by many of my constituents—who was a 17-year-old tailoress on her way to work. She was the first civilian fatality of the bombardment. Shrapnel also struck the end house of Cliff terrace, immediately to the rear of the Heugh battery. Two sisters, Annie and Florence Kay, were killed instantly.

William street in old Hartlepool was one of the worst-affected areas, with eight fatalities, all of whom were children. The youngest was Selina Herbert, aged three, and the oldest was George Dixon, aged just 14. The Dixons lived at No. 30. At the start of the bombardment the family started to flee, hoping to seek refuge in the neighbouring countryside and the villages of Elwick and Hart. As they passed Church Close street, a shell exploded in front of them. Not only George but his eight-year-old sister Margaret Ellen and seven-year-old brother Albert were killed instantly.

Their mother Margaret was blown off her feet by the scale of the blast, losing one of her legs in the process, but her maternal instinct overtook any thoughts for her own safety and she still clutched in her arms the blood-soaked baby of the family, John, who was not yet one. Margaret was losing consciousness, but told her surviving children, 12-year-old Joseph and three-year-old Billy, to run for safety. Joseph had 17 separate pieces of shrapnel in his leg and was bleeding profusely, but he took John in his arms and ran for his and his remaining brothers’ lives. He collapsed from blood loss and was found by soldiers, close to Trinity church. Although they lost three of their family, Margaret, Joseph, Billy and John all thankfully survived and recovered.

Thirteen-year-old Bertie Young was at his home in Princes street, Middleton, with his face pressed to the glass window, watching the bombardment, when a stray piece of shrapnel hit the glass and killed him.

Shells flew above the Heugh battery into West Hartlepool, across Hartlepool United’s football ground and the neighbouring allotments into the Furness, Cameron and Belk area—those streets and houses still stand to this day—and the streets named Turnbull, Dyke, Gas, Water and Crimdon. Belk and Turnbull streets were the most badly affected. Five deaths occurred in Belk street, including the youngest victim to die during the bombardment, seven-month-old Benjamin Lofthouse, of No. 25; 11-year-old Henry Bell, of No. 31 Belk street, also died.

Henry’s brother was working at Gray’s shipyard and was still on shift when the bombardment started. He recalled:

“In a few seconds a shell hit the offices and blew nearly all of it in the air. At the same time railway wagons were being blown sky high”.

He started running down Middleton road. He goes on:

“A few yards further on I saw Barney Hodgson of Water Street, pinned up against the Swedish church wall bleeding very badly. I went to run towards him but he shouted, ‘Keep on running son, I’m done for.’ I think he was a brave man.”

I think the House would agree.

In Turnbull street, nine deaths occurred, including three sets of brothers: Albert and Stanley Walker, aged nine and six, five-year-old William Peart and his two-year-old brother Charles, and Harold and Wilfred Cook, aged 10 and eight. It was the job of 12-year-old Alfred Claude, of 11 Gordon street, to walk each day to the dairy on Mulgrave road to get the family’s bread and milk. Alfred was killed on his way back from his errand when a shell exploded in Bright street.

Against disproportionate odds, and with great bravery and accuracy, the gun teams at the Heugh battery managed to return fire against the German attack. A total of 1,150 shells were fired by the German cruisers, but the bravery and professionalism of the men at the Heugh meant significant damage was inflicted on the ships and the bombardment—originally meant to last an hour—was curtailed to 42 minutes. The shortening of the attack, thanks to the bravery of the gun men, probably prevented further death, injury and damage.

Gunner Harry Tyson, of 17 Rowell street, was a member of the gun teams at the Heugh, and he recalled how something profoundly British took place—peace or war, there is nothing like a good, hot cup of tea—

“our cooks, Billy Sanderson and Arthur Hall…must have been making tea all the time we were in action. As soon as we stopped firing out came buckets of hot tea.”

In the space of 42 minutes, 119 people had been killed by the bombardment, including 37 children. Several deaths occurred in later weeks, bringing the total number of people killed as a result of the attack on our coast to 130, with over 500 people injured.

Writing after the bombardment, an officer of the Green Howards commended the people of the Hartlepools, stating:

“This account cannot be concluded without paying a tribute to the gallant behaviour of the civil population of the bombarded towns...Men, women and children following their daily tasks do not expect to be blown to pieces in the streets or to have the roofs of their houses come crashing in over their heads. Yet the inhabitants of the Hartlepools behaved like soldiers. There was no panic—no wild rush to safety. An hour after the firing ceased normal life was resumed just as if nothing had happened. This seems to show that these northern people still possess those sterling qualities which we associated with their ancestors, yet which many feared that modern luxury and modern comforts had sapped.”

In updating Parliament on the war on 6 January 1915, Lord Kitchener, as Secretary of State for War, paid tribute in the other place to the people of my constituency, stating:

“On our own coasts, on the morning of December 16, German battle-cruisers bombarded for half an hour Hartlepool, Scarborough, and Whitby. At Hartlepool a battery replied with some effect, though it was out-classed by the heavy guns of the cruisers. No military advantage was gained, or could possibly have been gained, by wanton attacks on undefended seaside resorts, which attacks had as their chief result fatal accidents to a certain number of civilians, among whom women and children figured pathetically. The people in the three towns bore themselves in this trying experience with perfect courage and coolness, and not the least trace of panic could be observed.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 January 1915; Vol. 18, c. 235.]

Unfortunately, most references to the bombardment of the Hartlepools in this House and the other place for most of the next decade or so were from right hon. and hon. Members pushing the Government of the day for compensation for those affected by the attack. It would not be until 1922, some eight years after the bombardment, that compensation was duly paid to the peoples of the Hartlepools.

The effect on the people of my constituency following the bombardment was astonishing. In the weeks and months after the attack, 22,000 men from the Hartlepools signed up for the war effort, something like one in two of the towns’ adult male population. The Hartlepools received the award for raising the most money per head of the population for the war effort of any place in the British empire, a modern equivalent, in a town of 100,000 people, of £545 million.

In 1914, the Hartlepools were a tough little town. Their people were plucky, patriotic and protective of their community. That was demonstrated exactly 100 years ago today in the bombardment and it was reiterated today by the people of the town in its commemoration. I and everybody in Hartlepool will never forget the sacrifices made by our ancestors—made by our own—in the Hartlepools during the bombardment of 16 December 1914.