British Pluck and Luck at the Hartlepools - The First Bombardment in 250 years | 16 December 1914 | Episode 51
Published on 16 December 1914
Not since 1665, when De Ruyter raided Sheerness, had a British soldier been killed by the enemy on English soil until, on the morning of December 16, 1914, German vessels (including the Blücher) bombarded the Hartlepools, killing and wounding 420 civilians and soldiers in 43 minutes. The following account of the daring raid is by an officer then in command of the Hartlepool defences. Hartlepool was well avenged when in the following year the Blücher was sunk on the Dogger Bank.