It's 1917 and the port at Halifax is beyond crowded. Ships have constantly been on their way to Europe since the UK's declaration of war on August 4th, 1914. While Canada determined for itself how much military and financial support it would give, there was no question that support would be provided.
But this day, December 6th, would be different. Two ships, the Mont Blanc and the Imo, would collide in the Narrows. Called such because of a hard-to-navigate stretch of the harbor, the ships should never have even been close to one another.
Yet they were, and the result of the collision would have devastating consequences for the entire city. The Imo would survive, despite severe structural damage. Massive repairs would be made and the Imo would return to service in 1918.
The Mont Blanc, though? That one didn't stand a chance.
From the collision, she burned quickly and rammed into the city's docks. Initially bound for Europe with a cargo of 2,700 tons of explosives, the captain and crew abandoned the ship at once, rowing for Dartmouth across the harbor and trying to warn everyone of what was to come. Thousands at the shore crowded with homes and businesses were already watching the fires burn, and at 9:05 AM, said fires reached the explosives packed carefully within the hold.
The result was an explosion with such force that all 3,000+ tons of iron that was the Mont Blanc was immediately vaporized in a cloud that shot into the sky over 2,000 feet high. Not only was much of the city flattened by the blast, but the blast created a massive wave that drenched the decimated and bewildered city. Not a single building in Halifax, or within a 16-mile radius, was left undamaged. An estimated 2,000 people were killed (different reports give different numbers) instantly, while another 9,000 were injured. Of those injured, another 300 would succumb to their injuries later.
On top of all of this devastation, a blizzard would arrive the following morning, completely isolating Halifax from any help from the outside world.
It's so difficult to wrap one's head around just how big this explosion was - the largest pre-atomic explosion in history. The anchor of the Mont Blanc landed some two miles away. The explosion was heard as far away as Boston, Massachusetts, when a fishing boat returned to the harbor there and inquired about the explosion they'd heard. The cloud of smoke was visible to ships more than fifty miles away.
The author describes in great detail each small event that happened, one after the other, in this massive chain of things that should NOT have happened, that resulted in such terrible death and destruction. Mac Donald does not stop there though. She shares how a massive relief mission set out from Boston almost immediately, despite not knowing the exact nature of the damage or even what was needed to help. Even with communication pretty much cut off completely, there was no hesitation. Food and water, clothing, money, building materials (especially glass - not a single window was left in Halifax after the explosion), doctors, medication, and volunteers headed northeast, ready to do whatever necessary to help a community in need.
The sheer volume and magnitude of injuries and causes of death were overwhelming. As mentioned previously, not a single window was left in Halifax. Much of that glass was embedded in the victims - including in their eyes. I can not stress enough how many eyes were removed due to this. The author goes into great detail. Buckets-ful of eyes. No anesthesia except ether, sometimes. We're talking HUNDREDS of severe eye injuries. Roughly 250 eye removals occurred to prevent infection, with sixteen people losing both eyes. The majority of those hundreds had partial vision loss due to the glass.
Scores of bodies were recovered, though many could not be identified due to the damage inflicted by the blast. The massive tsunami dragged dozens of witnesses and sailors back into the freezing water to drown. Others were crushed in collapsed buildings, mutilated by flying debris, or consumed by the raging fires.
Naturally when something of this magnitude occurs, there is the need to assign blame. Someone had to have caused this. While the captain and pilot of the Imo were killed in the collision, the captain and pilot of the Mont Blanc survived and were able to give their accounts of what happened in the moments before the fatal collision. Investigations, both judicial and military, were conducted and came to the same conclusions.
First of course, is that the two ships never should have gotten as near to one another as they did in the first place, regardless of what was on board. Both investigations ultimately decided blame was to be placed equally on the pilot and captain of the Mont Blanc, and the pilot and captain of the Imo. While the latter were both killed, the former were never indicted and there would be no actual trials to decide innocence or guilt. There was also the issue of the whistles from both ships, sending contradictory and misinterpreted signals to one another. The Imo had moved into the Mont Blanc's shipping lane to avoid a smaller vessel in its own, which caused more confusion. And of course there is the issue of the Mont Blanc not flying a red flag to indicate explosives were on board. However, maritime law at the time stated the flag only needed to be flown when loading or unloading cargo, not while in transit. As the Mont Blanc was moving to the harbor to join an Allied convoy, they were not required to fly it - nor would they have, as German u-boats were certainly on the look-out for just such flags.
The author does a masterful job recreating the horrific events of the day and documenting everything that came after. It is a riveting story of both catastrophic loss and enduring hope as people came together to bury their dead and rebuild their community.
Highly recommended.
COOL....! **TOTALLY** adds to 'The List'.
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