Halifax, Part 3 - The Halifax Explosion

In December, 1917, Halifax was a thriving hub in the Dominion of Canada. World War I had brought activity and prosperity to the port. The harbor was crowded with wartime shipping. Convoys of ships loaded with war supplies of food, munitions and troops gathered in Bedford Basin ready for the voyage to Europe with heavily-armed warships as escorts. Neutral vessels anchored in the harbor, their crews forbidden to land for fear they might supply information to the enemy. The population was swollen with troops, some awaiting embarkation for Europe, some garrisoned there, their families, and people who had come to benefit from the plentiful employment.

At 7:30 a.m. on December 6, the French ship Mont-Blanc left her anchorage outside the mouth of the harbor to join a convoy gathering in Bedford Basin. She was loaded with 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 10 tons of gun cotton and 35 tons of benzol, a highly explosive mixture. At the same time the Norwegian vessel Imo, in ballast, set off from the Basin bound for New York to pick up a cargo of relief supplies for Belgium. At the entrance to the Narrows, after a series of ill-judged maneuvers, the Imo struck the Mont-Blanc on the bow. Although the collision was not severe, fire immediately broke out on board the Mont-Blanc. The captain, pilot and crew, expecting the ship to blow up immediately, launched the lifeboats and took refuge on the Dartmouth shore.

The ship burned for twenty minutes, drifting until it rested against Pier 6, in the Richmond district, the busy, industrial north end of Halifax. The spectacle was thrilling, and drew crowds of spectators, unaware of the danger. Only a handful of naval officers and a railway dispatcher had learned of Mont-Blanc's explosive cargo and there was little time to spread a warning.  The crew of the Mont-Blanc did not speak English and this limited their ability to communicate the danger to Haligonians.

Just before 9:05 a.m., the Mont-Blanc exploded. Not one piece of her remained beside the dock where she had finished her voyage. Fragments rained on the surrounding area, crashing through buildings with enough force to embed them where they landed.

Two days after the explosion

Churches, houses, schools, factories, docks and ships were destroyed in the swath of the blast. Children who had stopped on their way to school, workmen lining the windows, families in their homes, sailors in their ships, died instantly. Injuries were frightful, blindness from the splintering glass adding to the shock and bewilderment.

The captain, pilot and five Imo crew members were killed. All from the Mont-Blanc survived, apart from one man who later died from his wounds.

Mercifully, rescue began quickly, with the thousands of well-disciplined troops and naval strength available. City officials speedily arranged for volunteer help and relief committees had been formed by the afternoon. Hospitals and places of shelter were soon overcrowded. All possible buildings ­ even ships in the harbor ­ were commandeered, and some of the injured and homeless were sent by rail to other cities.

News of the disaster reached Boston the same morning. That very night a train loaded with supplies, together with medical personnel and members of the Public Safety Committee, left for Halifax. Help poured in from all over Canada and many parts of the world, with the continuing generosity of Massachusetts unforgettable. Each Christmas the huge tree that glitters in Prudential Plaza in Boston is a thank-you gift from the people of Nova Scotia.

1,630 homes were completely destroyed, many by fires that quickly spread following the explosion; 12,000 houses were damaged; 6,000 people were left without shelter. Hardly a pane of glass in Halifax and Dartmouth was left intact. As for the Mont-Blanc, all 3,000 tons of her were shattered into little pieces that were blasted far and wide. The barrel of one of her cannons landed three and a half miles away; part of her anchor shank, weighing over half a ton, flew two miles in the opposite direction. Windows shattered 50 miles away, and the shock wave was felt as far away as Sydney, Nova Scotia, 270 miles away.

A make-shift hospital at the YMCA

The immediate death toll was around 1,600. It eventually rose to over 2,000. About 250 bodies were never identified; many victims were never found. Twenty-five limbs had to be amputated, more than 250 eyes had to be removed, 37 people were left completely blind. It is estimated that over 9,000 were injured.

The Dominion Government appointed the Halifax Relief Commission on January 22, 1918. It handled pensions, claims for loss and damage, rehousing and the rehabilitation of explosion victims. It was disbanded only in June, 1976. Pensions are now paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Halifax's Exhibition Building. The final body from the explosion was found here in 1919.

The official enquiry opened less than a week after the explosion. The captain and pilot of the Mont-Blanc and the naval commanding officer were charged with manslaughter and released on bail. Later the charges were dropped, because gross negligence causing death could not be proved against any one of them. In the Nova Scotia District of the Exchequer Court of Canada in April, 1918, the Mont-Blanc was declared solely to blame for the disaster. In May, 1919, on appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, both ships were judged equally at fault. The Privy Council in London, at that time the ultimate authority, agreed with the Supreme Court's verdict.

 

Thus no blame was ever laid in an incident that was the largest man-made explosion until the atomic age.  The effects of the Halifax Explosion were studied by Oppenheimer in calculating the strength of the bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Halifax Explosion Memorial Bell Tower

Many gravestones, artifacts and monuments in the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth are reminders of the explosion. The most impressive is the Memorial Bell Tower on Fort Needham, overlooking the explosion site. Hanging there is a carillon of bells, donated in 1920 to the United Memorial Church, which was built to replace two churches destroyed in the explosion. The presentation was made by a young girl who had lost her entire family in the blast, her mother, father and four brothers and sisters. At 9 a.m. on December 6, every year, a service is held there in memory of the victims of the Explosion. The bells ring out and can be heard across the Narrows in north Dartmouth, all around Fort Needham, and in the areas devastated by the Halifax Explosion of 1917.