The account below was related by H. Bell. He and his family lived at 31 Belk Street at the time of the bombardment, and were greatly affected by the German attack. The following account was related by Mrs E. M. Murray, the daughter of Barney Hodgson, in reply to the above account.

We lived on Belk Street at the time of the bombardment. I was working at Gray’s Central Shipyard and had just finished warming my can of tea, at about 8.20am, when the sound of gunfire could be heard. Everybody in the blacksmith’s shop where I worked went out to see what was happening. 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. The men who were running in that direction turned and made their way towards the back gate leading to Slag Island Quay.

Nearing this gate I climbed one of the uprights at the ship’s side which was on the stocks and in the course of construction, and saw that the gasometers were on fire. I shouted to the men who were running towards the gate to tell them what I could see.

“Get down you young fool!” they yelled back. By the time I reached Middleton Road the shells were coming over thick and fast. A lot fell in the timber ponds.

Reaching the junction of Middleton Road and Hartlepool Road I noticed a young boy stretched across the tram-lines face downwards and when I ran over to him I found out he was dead, with nearly half his chest blown away. His name was John McGuire. He lived on Cameron Road and had only recently started work at Gray’s dockyard.

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.

When I reached Belk Street and home, mother was propped up against the wall outside the house with blood running from her like water from a tap. In the road opposite her lay the body of a boy, Joseph Jacobs. I ran to the bottom of the street and took a barrow from a sculptor’s yard and ran back with it to our house to put my mother on to take her to hospital. Then my brother Tom came up, and between us we got mother and the Jacobs boy onto the handcart. At the junction of Belk Street and Hart Road we stopped a coal cart and transferred mother and the boy onto it, asking the driver to take them to Cameron Hospital.

At the mortuary I had to identify my youngest brother, little Henry, who had been killed. Another brother was in hospital with leg injuries. Our family’s casualties were mother who lost a leg and suffered multiple injuries, a brother killed, a brother with leg injuries and a nephew killed.