BABY-KILLING RAID

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3090, 22 May 1917, Page 5

BABY-KILLING RAID

• A FATHER'S TRAGIC STORY. Tho Germans, in. an extravagant leport ou tho uhelling by destroyers of tho unfortified towns ol Broadstairs and Margate, pretend that they attacked "delences noar the North Foreland." Tho faote aro shown in tho report of tho inquest, printed b'elow, on tlio poor woman and two little children who wero killed by tho bombardment. Tho coroner said there was nothing to boast about in having attacked 'a defenceless plate like that, but tho jury would probably go no further than return a verdict that the mother, and, child wero killed by gunfire, however reprehensible, disgraceful, and criminal was the act by which they mot their end. The husband and father, Frank Horace Morgan, a general labourer, said: "About 11.15 p.m. on Sunday I was downstairs when I heard the commencement of the bombardment. I put it down to a raid of soino sort. I stood and listened whilo the first five or six shells, burst. 1 went to the back window, pulled up the Wind, and saw the sky lit up by star shells. I thought I had better go to tho front and got to the door, and was about to unlock it when, two shells seemed to burst very close, so I went back to the kitchen. I stood still and hesitated a bit and was about to shout upstairs to my wife, but just as I got to tho stairs the whole staircase fell down and tho brickwork fell into the room. I heard tho children , , crying and went to the stairs and called to the wife, who did not answer. I don't know exactly what I did, but just then tho biggest boy came tumbling down. ■ 'Where' is mother?' he said to me. Thero was brick rubbish all over the stairs, and 1 thought she was buried. I first caught hold of one child who was not injured and took him to the frontdoor, telling him to go to his grandmother's house. I then went baok to the stairs and caught bold of the other hoy. He did, not fseem to be .injured at the time, but he is now in Margate Cottage Hospital. I told him also to go to hie grandmother's. I can't' say how he got there by hinieelf. Another little girl on the top of the stairs was bruised on the. forehead, and I sent her, too, to her grandmother's. The girl' Doris, who has since died'at Margate,,got out of bed herself, but could .not reach the stairs. I called to her to come, and she oried out pitifully, 'I can't. I'm hurt.' I went upstairs and brought her down, handing her to one of my sons, who carried her to her grandmother's house. Then at the top of the stairs I found my wife dead. I raised her up a bit and found she had the baby in her arms. The baby groaned, and I took her up the street and handed her over to the postmaster. Then I went back to the house. A young man came and helped me, and three doctors afterwards arrived. The firing," he added, "seemed to come from all round. The house was hit midway during the bombardment." Several splinters of shell wore, produced. The shell knocked a hole 4ft. in diameter dn the wall and threw down a , partition inside tho house. The witness found the fuse in the room. "Where my wife was," he continued, "she met the full force of tho shell. She was about 3ft. from where the shell came through. She,'had gone to fetch the baby." Inspector Ford, of the Kent County Police, said that in the immediate neighbourhood eight more shells (one unoxploded) were found, and forty others farther away. The jury returned a verdict of "Death from shell wounds, a juror contending that it should be one of murder.