Soldier Record

Miss Colina E Campbell served as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) at the Beaulieu Auxiliary Hospital, Harrogate (1915), The Russian Hospital in Mayfair, London (1916 to 1918), and as a driver for the YMCA in France (1918 to 1919). The letter to her mother (shown here) relates to the bombing of Whitby by German cruisers, December 1914.

we saw the streams of people with panic stricken-faces trying to get away

Letter

Tuesday 15th December 1914

Dear Mother,

I expect you will see in tomorrow's papers that Whitby has been shelled it is more than true. I will start at the beginning and tell you the events.

I came down to breakfast at 9 o'clock, Ken and May were not yet down, only the children. Suddenly at 9.10 we heard what the children thought was blasting only very near. The windows rattled and the house shook again and again. I said I am sure it's firing off the coast, so Barbara ran up to May. I came down saying it was very heavy gun firing along the coast. I can tell you the sound was pretty terrifying but it only lasted 10 minutes. The car was ordered and away we flew to Whitby. We were there about ¾ of an hour after the two German Cruisers had gone, but the houses they had wrecked was awful. When we got near Whitby we saw the streams of people with panic stricken-faces trying to get away. I never want to see such a thing again.

I am only just back from Whitby. Telegraph wires hanging like threads all snapped, huge gaping holes in the side of houses, lots of glass smashed everywhere and old women shaking with fright and sobbing. I've picked up lots of bits of shell. I have one in my pocket as I write. The two German cruisers fired from about where the Rohilla sank and fired at the coast guard station, shot that to bits and killed one coast guard. We saw the stretcher being carried. Some of the coast guards had bits taken out of their clothes. We went up with two inspectors who showed us everything. The coast guards were all laughing and smoking and said the cruisers came in so close they could see the men working on their decks. The curious thing is that I believe yesterday some of our own cruisers were off Whitby. So the spy signallers must have signalled last night "English Cruisers gone; safe to come."

Most people near heard heavy firing early this morning while it was still dark and we hear that these cruisers have visited Scarborough and other places and damaged them, but as all wires are out of order it is difficult to get news.

I don't know how to describe the state of the houses. Probably you will get better detail from the papers. In one street the venetian blinds had been blown right across the street, lamp post up turned, and I saw a pool of blood in front of a house, so I went into see if any one was hurt. Found that an old woman had been hit by a shell and was bleeding badly and was removed to the hospital; I went into one house with its owner who had not been in it since he left for work early this morning. Everything broken and a huge hole in the floor showing the cellar underneath. We went up to and into most of the houses that were hit and the sights one saw were pitiable. The extraordinary thing was so few people were killed or even badly hurt.

Published by the BBC with permission from the Imperial War Museum. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The IWM would be grateful for any information leading to copyright holders whose details are not currently known.