CHINA
APRIL
"DEATH IN HALIFAX
O
Recounting The Most Horrible Explosion In The History Of The World
the
1917,
flicker of bue flame first appeared to the deck and rum toward the through our bottom, hurtled was bombarding the city. This was
materials.
Suddenly, amid the confusion of shipping, a lifeboat appeared, manned by French sailors rowing furiously for the northern shore.
By Edmund Gilligan
morning of December 6, flame waned, sprang up again, were below decks escaped the the flames and the smoke, and life in the seaport of this boat swung smartly alongside great globe of fiery gas which sped heard the shrieks of the dying. A Nora Scotia, went on the Mont Blanc. Watchers on landward. A huge rock, ripped cry went up that a German fleet serenely for 17 minutes after a shore saw officers and men clamber from the
air and killed 64 followed by reports of an air raid, workmen on a pier
and many people swore they saw abroad the munitions ship Mont fire
The 17 minutes were up. A shaft On the southern shore of the planes in the sky. Panic-stricken, Blanc.
to the open country.
It was
nine o'clock, and work of yellow light, no thicker than the Halifax Narrows the community of people ran
warehouses Mont Blanc's masts, streaked up Richmond lies in a trough formed Five thousand crowded onto Hali- had begun in offices, and factories, all burdened with ward from her deck, piercing the by the hills. Through this trough fax Common.
Then came the invasion from the the rich business of war. Out-in sunny air for a mile. For an the immense pressure swept. Two
it whirled like a water- hundred school children had time harbour front. Preceded by cries the Narrows, freighters were be- instant
Then its top spread, and only to half-rise from their desks of torment, a mad horde stumbled ing warped into piers, cruisers and spout. transports swung at anchor, sea the whole pillar of fire mushroom- before, the walls fell upon them. and crawled and groped toward The worshippers in the streets of the main city. Blood men toiled over cargoes of war ed into an enormous purple cloud. There lived.
dripped from their faces. Some ran' with stumps of wrists held be- fore them. Children, lacerated and bloody Fed blinded parents. One woman carried the headless body. Four thousand tons of TNT had St. Joseph's Church, looking up of her baby. Scores fell and died. A second boat followed, also filled exploded- -the greatest detonation wärd in supplication, died that The cessation of the explosions. with men, all glancing backward ever heard on earth. The Mont way Factories and entire streets brought Halifax back to sanity. in desperation at that thin blue Blanc vanished. A fragment of her of houses trembled and collapsed; Couriers were sent over highways flame on the Mont Blanc. When anchor, weighing half a ton, few trees leaped from the earth and and railroads to tell the outside the first boat struck the beach the three miles amid sheets of fame. went flying like leaves. People world what had happened: Part of sailors flung themselves ashore in Plates ripped from her hull fell in were lifted high into the air, car- the world already guessed. People dashed to death at breakfast on Prince Edward terror, gibbering French curses a hissing rain on ships and houses. ried far, then and prayers, and shrieking: "Pou. An immense torrent, white and against walls and telegraph poles. Istand, 125 miles away, had seen dar! Pon-dar!”
bailing, towered upward where the Fires, started in a thousand their plates dance Ships far at As the sailors fled up the streets ship had been. Gulls high above places, met and formed one great sea had heard the explosion.
from which their warning ran garbled from the steaming maelstrom burst into consuming blaze, mouth to mouth. Some people gobs of flesh and feathers.
spread the nauseating odor of others
burning human flesh. Out of this Rescue work got under way legged after the seamen hastened to the water's edge to
inferno, running and stumbling, while firemen, aided by volunteers, question the men leaping from the
came the blind and the maimed, started the long task of extinguish- second boat.
the hogs and cats, horses gallop- ing the fires The dead were laid ing in frenzy.
on the pavements, their bodies
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Death then advanced, roaring over the water. Ships leaped up ward, tore free from their moor- "She's afire!" blurted a Cana- ings, fell off crazily before the dian in the boat. "The Mont Blanc. tidal wave. Eight sailors were The afterblast of the explosion piled like cordwood. As wagons The Imo collided with her. Muni- spattered against a cruiser's tur- rushed onward into the city of rolled out of the fire and smoke, tions aboard!" He raced away. ret. The captain of the imo and Halifax itself and broke windows, piled with the half-naked bodies of Meanwhile HMS. Highflyer, a 30 of his crew were squashed on toppled walls and spread showers girls from factories, children from up from British cruiser anchored near-by, her deck by the force of the con- of glass. Everyone who was able: schools, and sailors tossed had put a boat overside. As the cussion. Only those sailors who rushed to the streets. They saw the harbour on the tremendous tidal wave which followed the blast, the death list mounted to 2,000. The injured totalled 20,000. Five hundred persons were: never found, having vanished from the face of the earth.
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Night came over a city lighted only by torches and lanterns. Sur- geons operated by the glimmer of oil lamps. All night long the wagons- of the dead rolled out of the smoke and stopped at the schools and other buildings used for morgues. And then a new horror arrived. A storm blew down over the stricken city, the worst blizzard in its history icy winds benumbed the rescuers. Pneumonia hastened the deaths of the injured. By this time the outside world had begun an extraordinary effort to assist. Special trains started from New York with medical sup- plies, food and doctors. All the New England States sent similar contributions. A ship was loaded at Boston and the throng of e tributors was so great that po reserves were called to keep o The Canadian Government Bent supplies and workers. But the rescuers came only in time to open vast burial plots.
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What was the origin of the Mont Blanc explosion? This is the gen- erally accepted version-
As the Mont Blanc, arriving from New York, entered the Nar- rows that morning, the Imo, a Nor- wegian grain ship, was proceeding down the Narrows. There were many other ships moving in the channel, and in a confusion of signals the Imo headed directly for the munitionsship. When the two collided the Imo's prow cut into the Mont Blanc and overturn- ed a drum of zenzol up forward. Some persons maintained that the
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