Book Review | Curse of The Narrows: The Halifax Disaster of 1917

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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.

NetGalley ARC | Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐

I probably would have given this four stars, or at least three and a half, if I would not have had to read about the journey of the mother of the worst president in the history of the United States.

Aside from that drivel, this was a book packed with tons of interesting anecdotes and gossip and I feel the author did a fantastic job portraying life at sea for these women and how their work evolved over time.

I enjoy this period of travel. I love that the author focuses specifically on women and how they made a living on the massive liners that once ran regularly between the US and Europe.

I appreciate that she focused on a a wide variety of women, from all walks of life. We read of celebrities, artists, and the wealthy travelling for pleasure, migrants and refugees seeking safety and a new life, as well as the women who worked for the great shipping companies, sending their wages back home to help care for parents and siblings.

I found women on the crew to be of the most interest to me. I admire these women who worked these long, hard hours at sea to provide for their families. Violet Jessop is mentioned here and I absolutely recommend her autobiography, which I wrote about HERE. Not only did Violet survive the sinking of Titanic, but not long after she survived the sinking of the Britannic (Titanic's sister ship) as well. Her book is a wonderful look into her life, in which the famous and not-so-famous shipwrecks play but a small part. She had even been aboard the Olympic in 1911 when it collided with the HMS Hawke.

There were times when the narrative was very slow and felt like a slog. This could be a personal thing, as we learn plenty about those who travelled by liner because they had the money to do so, sailing back and forth between the Old World and the New. Still, it did take me a bit to finish this one and some passages and stories were not nearly as interesting as others.

There were times when the book became a bit repetitive as well, especially when stories were similar. Not always, but enough to be noticeable.

I never really thought about until this book, just how critical this work was for women who sought independence and a way to support themselves. To say that it changed countless lives would not be an overstatement. Slowly but surely, as women began travelling more, the need for stewardesses arose to help tend to them aboard the ships. That role of stewardess even evolved over time as some women were able to become conductresses and coordinate activities for the passengers. And then as two world wars came, women were able to stay aboard as nurses and continue to make a life for themselves.

Overall I appreciate the author's work and the research that went into the book. She's given a voice to many women who otherwise might remain unknown to us today.

Durham Adventures | James Cameron Challenging the Deep

I have posted a time or two or twelve about a fantastic museum we have here in Omaha. The Durham Museum is housed in the former Union Station (bonus for me, I cam OBSESSED with old train stations) and is an affiliate of the Smithsonian. Year after year I am amazed by the awe-inspiring exhibits that grace its halls.

The most recent exhibit to open is one Eleanor and I have been not-so-patiently waiting for, James Cameron Challenging the Deep. Let me tell you...wow. Just wow. If you don't live in Omaha (this is mostly a good thing, Omaha sucks), then make sure you can see the exhibit on one of its future stops. It is hands-down one of the best the Durham has ever had - and that's saying a lot, considering everything that has come through in the last seven years.

For a brief recap, Eleanor's first visit to the Durham came when she was one month old. My mom and grandparents had come to visit and I was excited to see the latest exhibit featuring Sue the t Rex. I'd seen Sue in her home at the Field Museum in Chicago, but could not pass up the chance to see her again. It did not disappoint, but I did not figure to be back much in Eleanor's younger years, as this is not exactly a museum for children.

Don't get me wrong, there is PLENTY for children to enjoy. There is a massive interactive model train set, as well as train cars for guests to explore. Many sections of the permanent collection are also unique. Not to mention, many of the travelling exhibits have some component that will be interesting to kids - whether designed that way, or by sections/pieces added from the Durham's own collection. I just did not foresee that happening with my almost-three-year-old when we next visited the Durham to see one of Shakespeare's surviving First Folios. Of course I stood there over the glass case, blubbering like a baby as I read Hamlet's soliloquy and museum volunteers asked if I was alright.

After exploring the rest of the artifacts on display, Eleanor was eager to get out of her stroller and clamber aboard the train cars and trolleys. This kid was HOOKED. One a MUSUEM. And she wasn't even THREE YET. We would visit several times in the next couple months alone, even having her third birthday there, as well as her three-year pictures.

Fast forward to May, 2021.

By this point, the majority of the staff knows my daughter and I well. We've done summer camps, Christmas Tree lightings and Santa/reindeer visits, cultural festivals, and Flappers and Fizz events (Eleanor is really upset she's not allowed at these, on account of the alcohol. She gets reeeeeeal upset whenever I go to the Durham without her, which is rare), Halloween shindigs, summer story times and activities, and more. This is all in addition to regular visits. During the summer we are there easily two-three times a week. Time and again staff members have gone above and beyond for my girl and I love them all so much.

So, with this new exhibit opening, you can imagine we were pretty psyched. Though it would be showcasing artifacts related to numerous underwater explorations by James Cameron, we were of course most interested in anything Titanic-related.

Our friend Abby, who works at the Durham and is the Director of Education Services, has also been pretty pumped for the opening and I was so ready to see it after hearing her talk about it. She said it might be one of her favorite exhibits ever, which you can imagine might make it quite good, considering the plethora of others that have some through.

We'd been chatting about it on Thursday, May 20th and I was lamenting the fact that the sneak-peek member-only days always happen on Fridays. We almost never get to attend because Eleanor and I are both at school. Abby told me that due to unforeseen pandemic-related shipping delays, some of the pieces had not actually arrived until that very week, so the members-only day had been cancelled and the official opening for everyone would be Saturday the 22nd.

I knew long before this conversation that Eleanor would be visiting, but hearing Abby talk about how great it looked and how captivating it was, I registered for tickets that night. Plus, facemasks were still required for guests at that time (not until the following week would the mandate expire), so obviously Opening Day was our best choice.

Once she heard that, Abby decided she would go too, even though it was her day off and she did not actually have to be there. It's not often she gets to wander through the museum with us as a patron because she is always working and someone is always calling for her on the walkie. But this would be perfect! I felt marginally guilty because it WAS her day off after all, but...Titanic. We made a plan to meet at the museum a little before ten when they open.

But the story gets even better!

Friday night Abby texts me and starts off with something to the effect of, "I have a super cool secret thing that will be awesome for Saturday for Eleanor and I don't know if I should tell you or let you be surprised too!"

Of course I HAD to know. If it was something big, I wanted to be able to record Eleanor's reaction, because that's what parents do these days, right? Plus, if it was by chance Titanic-related...

Anyway, so Abby tells me that she's been working with a woman named Kim from the Avatar Alliance Foundation, who were partners in creating Challenging the Deep with the Australian National Maritime Museum. Abby had talked to Kim that Friday afternoon about Eleanor and I being Durham Super Fans, and Abby even showed Kim this photo of Eleanor taken the previous summer. We'd stopped at the Durham to pick up supplies from Abby for summer camps that would be held via Zoom for 2020 and Eleanor was clearly upset that she was so close...yet so far away from her favorite place in the entire world.

Abby also told Kim that we would be seeing the exhibit that next day, and would hopefully be the first ones in. At that time I did not realize, or it had escaped my memory, that the Durham was the very first stop on the tour and this was the North American Premier. Kim asked Abby to do her a favor and record Eleanor's reaction going in, because SHE WOULD LOVE TO SHARE THE VIDEO WITH HER GOOD FRIEND JAMES CAMERON so he could see who the very first visitor would be. Kim said that Mr. Cameron supports and encourages young scientists and especially young girls so they are represented in the field.

It was super hard to keep that a secret from Eleanor. I've let her watch Titanic (obviously some scenes were heavily censored, including the span of 45 minutes where everyone dies) so she knows who James Cameron is. We've also talked a lot about Dr. Robert Ballard (who is doing a virtual lecture for the Durham on June 10th and you can register HERE) and how he discovered where Titanic sank. Eleanor is pretty well-versed in her knowledge of Titanic-related people.

So, I had this big secret to keep all night and we got up bright and early to meet Abby at like 9:40, because we were determined to be first.

As soon as we reached the entry to the exhibit hall we both started recording and Eleanor was entranced immediately. There was so much to see, she could hardly focus on one thing at a time. I even felt overwhelmed, but it a completely amazing way because there is just SO MUCH. It truly is an immersive experience. We recorded for about five minutes, then Abby finally told Eleanor WHY we were recording her. Eleanor promptly shrieked and ran away. Then she recovered and told James Cameron hello and how happy she was.

There are four large screens running various short videos on timed intervals - From the Abyss, Titanic, the USS Bismarck, and DEEPSEA CHALLENGER. Eleanor ran to the DeepSea Challenger video immediately and recognized Cameron. She stood watching for a couple minutes, just trying to take it all in. Then I pointed her toward the Titanic artifacts and video. She recognized Jack's outfit right away, and the dress Rose was wearing in the scenes from the night Titanic sank. We saw props from the movie including the Heart of the Ocean necklace and Rose's butterfly comb and mirror that were retrieved from her state room. AND...the last existing copy of Titanic's script, complete with Cameron's notes scribbled all over it.

There was so much more though, SO MUCH. I had no idea just how deeply and passionately James Cameron loves the ocean. There were artifacts from his childhood that his mother had saved, drawings and models he'd created over the years.

We saw deep sea specimens brought up from the darkest depths of the ocean, as well as a wide variety of submersibles used on many of his missions. There is also a replica of the pilot sphere that Cameron co-designed and engineered himself that guests can sit in. This is the vessel he used on his solo dive to Challenger Deep, the lowest known point on earth, in the Mariana Trench.

There's just so much here, I could go on and on and on. We are actually going back tomorrow so my aunt, who is in town visiting, can see our favorite place. Then my mom is coming this weekend for Eleanor's dance showcase and guess where we are going on Sunday? I'll give ya three, but you'll only need one.

If this exhibit is coming anywhere near you on its tour, you must go see it. It will take your breath away.

And of course Eleanor and I could not leave without a few treasures of our own. Yes, yes we did both get Heart of the Ocean necklaces.

Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor

I received this ARC for free via NetGalley from Da Capo Press in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I have a slight obsession with reading anything I can get my hands on about Pearl Harbor. I think part of the reason is because I have been there, been out to the USS Arizona, and seen the memorials. It is a humbling experience and one not to be taken lightly. My grandma and I went to Hawaii a few years ago and we incredibly lucky to have two great tour guides from Home of the Brave Tours (one of whom was the owners' son) who took us to Pearl Harbor, Wheeler Airfield and Schofield Barracks, the Punchbowl, Fort Shafter, and a few other sites before the tour concluded at the museum run by the company. Just an aside, the tour was amazing and I highly recommend this tour company. Lots of high-interest sites and very informative - plus the museum had tons of great artifacts; Grandma and I had such a great experience. All photos belong to me and were taken in June, 2010.

Arriving at the USS Arizona

At Wheeler

At the Home of the Brave Tours museum

Now I suppose I should get on to the book, eh?

On December 7th, 1941 as the attack was getting underway by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, one of the enduring mysteries of that day was unfolding. An American cargo ship, the Cynthia Olson, was hauling lumber from the Seattle to Honolulu for the Army. Somewhere in between, the ship was fired on by a Japanese sub. After sending off one wireless message about an attack, the radio on board went silent. No one knows for sure what happened to the ship, how long she took to sink, if multiple subs were involved, or the fate of her 35 crew members. While the captain of I-26, the sub who fired on the Cynthia Olsen, has passed away, along with everyone else who was involved (either American or Japanese), we will never know for sure the true story.

"The humble Cynthia Olson - old, slow, and of virtually no military value in the greater scheme of things - was destined to die simply because she was in the wrong place at the very worst of times" (36%).

We can, however, make our best educated guesses based on the information we do have - though unfortunately certain ship logs that might shed light on the mystery have long-since disappeared, reported as destroyed.

Sounds like something we should have learned about in history class right? And we would have, had the full-scale attack on Pearl Harbor not also been happening at roughly the same time. And that is actually part of the mystery. There is kind of a muddle of information that does not make it clear when the warning shot was first fired at the ship. The sub's commander insisted he did not fire the warning shot until 8:00 AM Hawaiian time, when the first wave was to descend on Oahu. However, that may not have been true, and he may have ordered the first shot up to half an hour earlier.

I wavered between three and four stars on this one for a while, and really only because the beginning started off very slow. Truthfully, I even skimmed a lot of that because I wanted to get to the real point of the book. Prior to that though, we are given the entire history of the Cynthia Olson which, while important, made for heavy reading very early on. Given the fact that we really don't have answers, perhaps the back story was included to give some meat to the text, as I honestly do not think there was enough information to really flesh out the story. I think overall this is an important event though. These men deserve to have their stories told, at least as much as we can tell of them, given the information still available. Unfortunately for the men who hailed from the Philippines, with lack of contact information for their next-of-kin or descendants, this story will never really have an ending.

As mentioned above, the beginning of the book, perhaps about 1/4, is devoted to the history of the Cynthia Olson. We learned about her construction, the company that owned her, and the crew who were aboard the ship on December 7th. The problem again is that there was so little known about most of the crew, that they never really seem real. The crew was comprised primarily of Scandinavian-born naturalized US citizens and Filipino merchant marines who retained their citizenship in the Philippines. There was a bit more information known about the captain, Carl Carlson, and his officers, but other than that many times even the ages of the crew were unknown. These men mattered, their story matters, but we never really get to know them and there is no chance of that happening.

So, we are left to focus on what we do know and the story does pick up its pace as the ship and sub cross paths. I-26 is commanded by Minoru Yokota, and we get his background and resume as well. We are told that the Cynthia Olson sent a distress call after being stopped with a warning shot. Japanese accounts then state that Commander Yokota gave the crew time to abandon the vessel, it being an unarmed ship, and both lifeboats were swung away, the davits empty in ensuing photos taken from the sub. Then, after the men were off the ship, the Cynthia Olson was slowly but surely sunk to the bottom of the Pacific. There is not clarity about how long the sinking actually took, and accounts contradict one another. At one point in later interviews, Commander Yokota says it took several hours to sink, yet this would not have been possible when the search vessels arrived to assist the Cynthia Olson crew. Unsurprisingly, they find nothing, no debris, no crew, no bodies, nothing. Other accounts state that a second sub, I-19 (later to actually be identified as I-15), came upon the crew in their lifeboats and gave them some additional provisions. The current and winds would have carried the lifeboats away from the location of the sinking, making any hope of rescue impossible. We are privy to this fact based on the coordinates of the rescue ships and the vast area they covered in their box search.

The final section relates to what the author considers the three essential questions revolving around the mystery of the lost ship. First is a question of timing and whether or not the Cynthia Olson was sunk before shots were ever fired on Pearl Harbor. Secondly, whether news of the attack have been enough of a warning that more was coming. And last, the most important, what happened to the 35 men who woke up to a new day on an uneventful routine sea voyage that would ultimately be their last?

In the end, we will never have concrete answers to these questions, except perhaps question number two. Even if Commander Yokota had ordered his crew to fire that warning shot, it could not have been more than 30-45 minutes before the rest of the force attacked. And really, would he have jeopardized the bigger mission, for surely he would have thought that rescue ships and/or planes would have come to the Cynthia Olson's aid. As for the fate of the crew, the author presents us with four options:

1. There was no warning shot and the ship was sunk with the crew on board, violating international treaties in regards to unarmed ships

2. The crew was able to get off the ship in the life boats, and then were killed by I-26

3. The crew was killed by the second sub, I-15

4. The crew perished in the lifeboats, either from starvation, dehydration, exposure, etc.

The author does point out, logically, that scenario one and two don't make a lot of sense. This primarily rests on the fact that the wireless operator, Sam Ziskind, had time after the sub's appearance to send both the auto alarm and the follow-up message with the ship's coordinates. As such, one would have to wonder what the point would have been for the commander to allow the crew to board the boats, only to kill them in the water. It would have seemed to be a waste of precious time, especially as the rest of the country was finding out what was happening on Oahu.

Further digging into the possibility of scenario #3 indicates that neither I-15 nor I-19 could have come into contact with the Cynthia Olson lifeboats. This is according to records and the author's research into those records.

The final scenario then seems the most likely, though we will never be certain. It is most likely that the men drifted on the open water, exhausting the provision each boat was equipped with, eventually succumbing to the conditions. This is the conclusion the author states can only be the true, logical conclusion to this tragic story. While I do not share his conviction 100%, it does make sense.

Though I mentioned before that there truly was not enough material here to make this a full book, I do have to admire the research the author put into this text. It appears he searched through every archive, spoke to every person he could, to glean any scrap of info possible about the ship, her crew, and her final hours. The Notes section runs from 79% to 92%, noting several contacts around the US, as well as a few other countries. Primary and Secondary Sources then run from 92% to 96%.

Overall, I can recommend it for those who truly have an interest in WWII and Pearl Harbor in particular. For those who may have only a passing interest in the subject, the massive information dump in the beginning may be off-putting. Still, I do see the value in this story being told. It is the least we can do for the crew of the Cynthia Olson.