It was on the 16th of December, 1914, that this second raid took place.  Over the North Sea there hung a light mist.  The German admiralty did not afterward make public the names of the cruisers which participated in this expedition, but they are believed to have been the Derfflinger, Bluecher, Von der Tann, Seydlitz, and Graudenz.  It was at eight o’clock in the morning that the residents of the three English towns first heard the booming of the German guns, and coast guards near by were able, with the aid of very strong glasses, to make out the hulls of the attacking cruisers some miles out to sea.  It was not thought possible that the Germans could again elude the British ships on patrol in these waters, and the guards therefore thought that the firing came from ships flying the Union Jack and tried to signal to them.  But they came to realize the truth when they received no answering signals.

As it was not known but that the Germans would make an attempt to land, the guards in the obsolete fort at Hartlepool took their positions and two small patrol boats in the harbor made ready to give what resistance they could.  These, the Doon and the Hardy, drew the fire of the German guns, and, seeing it was impossible to withstand the German fire, they made off and escaped.  This time the Germans were better informed about the conditions they dealt with, and evidently had no fear of mines, for they came to within two miles of the shore.  The forts on shore were bombarded and private houses near by were hit by German shells, killing two women who lived in one of them.  The forts tried to reply to the German guns, but those of the English battery were by no means modern, and firing them only served to further convince the Germans that the place was fortified; they inflicted no damage on the German ships.

The lighthouse was the next target chosen by the Germans, one of their shells going right through it, but leaving it standing.  Within fifty minutes 1,500 German shells were fired into the town and harbor.  While two of the three cruisers which were engaged in bombarding drew off further to sea and fired at Hartlepool, the third remained to finish the battery on shore, but in spite of the fact that it was subjected to long and heavy firing, it was not so terribly damaged.  Many of the shells from the other two ships went over the towns entirely and buried themselves in the countryside that heretofore had been turned up only by the peaceful plow.  Other shells did havoc in the business and residential sections of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool, bringing down buildings and killing civilians in them as well as on the streets.