At about the same hour the coast guards near Scarborough reported the approach of foreign ships off the coast, and then telephoned that the strangers were German cruisers and that they had begun to bombard the town.  A German shell destroyed the shed from which the telephone message had come and the warnings from it ceased.  It was seen by those on shore that the attack here was being made by four ships, two of them cruisers and two of them mine layers, only 800 yards out in the water.  This time they were not handicapped by the fact that they had to stand out so far from shore, and it was a surprise to the natives to see ships of such draft come so close to land—­a fact which convinced the British authorities that spies had been at work since the first raid, sending to the German admiralty either charts or detailed descriptions of the region.

The castle was badly damaged by their fire; the town itself came next, the Grand Hotel coming in for its share of destruction.  They did little injury to a wireless station in the suburbs, but hit quite a number of residences, the gas and water works.

Half an hour afterward the two cruisers which had fired upon Scarborough appeared off Whitby and began to fire at the signal station there.  In the ten minutes that the bombardment of Whitby lasted some 200 shells fell into the place.  This time the fact that the German ships came close to the shore worked against them, for there are high cliffs close to the water at the spot and it was necessary for the German gunners to use a high angle, which did not give them much chance to be accurate.  The German ships next turned seaward and made for their home ports.

The scenes enacted in the three towns during the bombardment and afterwards were tragic.  Considering the fact, however, that the persons under fire were civilians, many of them women and children, their coolness was remarkable.  They did not know what should be done, for the thought of bombardment was the last thing that had come into the minds of the authorities when England went to war, and as a result no instructions for such an emergency had been issued by the authorities.  Some thought it best to stay within doors, some thought it best to go into the streets.  In Hartlepool a large crowd gathered in the railway station, some fully dressed, some only in night clothes.

Many of the women carried babies in their arms and were followed by older children who clung to their skirts.  Policemen led this crowd out of the station and started them along a street which would bring them out into the country, but while they were passing the library they were showered by the stone work as it fell when hit by the German shells.  One shell, striking the street itself, killed three of the six children who were fleeing along it in company with their mother.  Many other persons met deaths as tragic either within their own homes or on the streets.  St. Mary’s Catholic Church as well as the Church