Comments on: The Halifax Explosion

The Halifax Explosion

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:19:19 -0800

1917: The largest man-made non-nuclear explosion in history and yet (outside of Canada) a largely unknown disaster - The Halifax Explosion. [more inside]

By: spock

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:19:56 -0800

The seismic event rang church bells 60 miles away. Yet all of the crew (except one) of the exploding ship survived. Why? They knew what they were carrying and abandoned ship early. There were about 20 minutes between the collision and the explosion at 9:05. It was enough time for spectators, including many children, to run to the waterfront to watch the ship burning. An audio and video re-creation. Historical photographs and other media and related clips (Windows Media Files). Survivors recall the day. It was a bad day to be in the same harbor. The explosion is followed by a tsunami. The next morning, a blizzard descends upon the city hampering the recovery efforts and besieging the homeless. Somebody should make a movie.

By: etaoin

etaoin — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:28:50 -0800

This is a great, great story. Halifax still bears some scars but, at least when I was up there several years ago, I don't recall seeing any great monuments or anything though I was curious because I'd just read a book about it. I could be wrong...

By: saladin

saladin — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:33:20 -0800

Amazing story, thanks, spock.

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:39:36 -0800

And, every year, Bostonians appreciate the Christmas tree which adorns the Prudential Center in Boston's Back Bay. "For more than 30 years, Nova Scotia has donated a giant evergreen...to the people of Boston as a thank you for their assistance following the 1917 Halifax Explosion."

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:40:22 -0800

I remember reading a book on this in high school about seventeen thousand years ago, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was called.

By: debralee

debralee — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:42:57 -0800

I live in Halifax, and yes, we do have a memorial. The Bell Tower.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:46:02 -0800

Gasp, no historical story is complete without a link to the Wikipedia article! This is good.

By: hamfisted

hamfisted — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:50:59 -0800

Not to be confused with the Halifax Pop Explosion...

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:56:58 -0800

Correction ... these days the annual Christmas tree from Nova Scotia is displayed on the Boston Common.

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:59:54 -0800

Aha! It was Barometer Rising, a novel written in 1941, studied back-to-back with Walter Lord's A Night To Remember. It must have been the disaster semester of the Ontario high school English curriculum.

By: caddis

caddis — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:03:21 -0800

Spock, nice post. You beat me to it. I was thinking about posting this after seeing the recent post about the explosion in Texas. Someone did a great documentary about this which I saw on either the History Channel or PBS. The stories of the orphans it created were among the most poignant.

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:03:21 -0800

Also... Not to be confused with the Halifax Explosions.

By: spock

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:11:41 -0800

"When Robert Oppenheimer, head of the U.S Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb, wanted to visualize what destructive powers would be unleashed by his monstrous new weapon, he studied the devastation of the Halifax explosion."

By: kcds

kcds — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:14:31 -0800

Spock 1917: The largest man-made non-nuclear explosion in history and yet (outside of Canada) a largely unknown disaster - The Halifax Explosion Sir, I believe you misspelled nuculer

By: fish tick

fish tick — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:14:56 -0800

Armitage Shanks - possibly Barometer Rising, or Who's a Scaredy-Cat?

By: fish tick

fish tick — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:16:23 -0800

Never mind. *blush*

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:19:01 -0800

fish_tick, that second link is awesome. "Despite the damage caused by the explosion, despite Mr. Morton's disappearance, the children are able to enjoy Christmas, Rex the dog, and each other."

By: spock

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:24:39 -0800

Apologies. The movie link in first comment above should go here.

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:33:08 -0800

a largely unknown disaster - The Halifax Explosion One of the cable networks did a show on it a few years ago. Once it gets to that level of "pop history", I don't know that I would call it an "unknown" event. Them's are some amazing links, though.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:45:35 -0800

Don't forget the Heritage Minute about Vince Coleman, the telegraph operator who warned the trains bound for Halifax of the imminent explosion.

By: GhostintheMachine

GhostintheMachine — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:50:59 -0800

For me, the saddest part is waking up every December 6th, knowing full well there will be a picture on the front page of the Herald and the Daily News of some explosion survivor and their "story" of that day. I'm sure at one time they were fairly poignant, but now... "Well, they tell me there was this big horrific explosion and glass and debris everywhere, but since I was 4 freakin' months old at the time my recollection is a mite foggy, don'cha know." It's bad enough to have your life defined by such a moment, but when you think that anyone older than a teenager at the time of the explosion would be over 100 now, that means virtually every living witness would have absolutely no memory of the event. Yet they still get trotted out every year.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:53:13 -0800

This has always been very interesting to me, and I had always assumed it had been posted once already. good thing someone didn't assume that.

By: fish tick

fish tick — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 10:15:39 -0800

GhostintheMachine: I'm sure you won't have to tolerate survivor stories for too many more years. Chin up.

By: spock

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 10:25:46 -0800

Amazing silent movie film reel of the aftermath (REAL format). If the above link does not work for you, fire up RealPlayer and choose "Open Location" from the File menu. Paste the following URL rtsp://media.cbc.ca/cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/he4_recovery/media/halifax_explosion_aftermath2.rm. (Since that is a stream it will probably not work well with too slow of an internet connection.

By: spock

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 10:45:35 -0800

Also interesting: Francis Mackey was an experienced harbour pilot. A judicial inquiry put much of the blame for the disaster on him, and he was even charged with manslaughter. Other courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada disagreed, saying no one person was responsible. Mackey lived in Halifax for the rest of his life. In 1958, the 86-year-old Mackey gave an interview to CBC Radio: Real Audio Here (6:41)

By: livii

livii — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 11:51:02 -0800

Good post, good links. The Explosion's an interesting story. I lived in Halifax for three years, and it's interesting the effect it still has on the city. For example, any old tree in the explosion area is really quite amazing, as it lived through the explosion. However, during Hurricane Juan lots of them were uprooted, which was really sad. The Maritime Museum in Halifax has a great exhibit on the explosion, if you're ever in town.

By: GhostintheMachine

GhostintheMachine — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:57:37 -0800

fish tick: But that's my point. If they actually were survivor stories, they would be interesting and compelling. But instead we get to put some 90 year old woman on the front page and ask her about the explosion. But since she was all of 2 years old at the time, her story is limited to what other people have told her happened, which really doesn't get us that much father ahead now, does it? Is there a living survivor with an actual remembrance of the event? Highly, highly doubtful. The few who "remember" being knocked about in their crib or seeing a big flash or hearing the boom have likely invented those memories from having gone over the story year after year around the anniversary. And what of the rest of their lives? Nobody wants to hear of the rest of the 90+ years of their post-explosion life. All they want to hear is the vague recollection of an event that happened outside their conscious memory. And that's the sad part.

By: stray

stray — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:18:40 -0800

I'm from NS, so I've heard my share of Explosionisms, but my favorite part was always that Historica Heritage moment on TV depicting Vince Coleman, railway despatcher, in his last frantic attempts to save lives before the explosion. Man, I love those Heritage Moments. I think there's few Canadians who can't quote a handful of 'em verbatim.

By: stray

stray — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:21:13 -0800

Shattered City is the movie, btw.

By: fish tick

fish tick — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:39:56 -0800

GhostintheMachine: I know a few pretty alert 95-year-olds myself, and it seems to me that a traumatic event such as that when you were 7 would remain a 'true' memory, at least to some extent. Dare one suggest that you not read the paper that day? *Waves to stray from NS.*

By: fenriq

fenriq — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 14:02:02 -0800

What language was the original write up of the story done in since it reads extremely choppy with some sentences just repeated? An amazing story really. As for culpability, I'd think the captain of the Mont Blanc would be at least partially responsible for not having flown the correct flag to denote all of the explosives on board. Woops, says charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence. The aftermath write up is pretty wild as well, "A total of twenty-five limbs ended up having to be amputated and more than 250 eyes had to be removed. Only 37 people were left completely blind. " Only 37.

By: costas

costas — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 14:46:39 -0800

I thought I had seen this before (not really a double post, but definitely related).

By: spock

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:21:27 -0800

Yep. Had not read that thread, but GhostintheMachine hit it with a comment. Hopefully still worth a FPP to most.

By: livii

livii — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:49:13 -0800

Heritage Moments rock. I don't think you're a real Canadian if you don't know "Doc-tor, I smell burnt toast!" You'd be surprised how often that can be relevant to a conversation. The Vince Coleman one actually makes me sort of teary-eyed. And spock, still worth an FPP to me (*had same thing happen to me yesterday...*)

By: Triplanetary

Triplanetary — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:14:45 -0800

I saw a documentary on the explosion a year or two ago. It surprised me that the crew of the ship just jumped overboard and didn't try to put the fire out or scuttle the craft. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it the documentary made it sound as if the fire was quite small at start.

By: zardoz

zardoz — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 17:25:36 -0800

The jury's still out on if it was man-made (many think it was a secret nuclear bomb--the first), but a far larger explosion was in Tunguska, Siberia, in 1909.

By: spock

spock — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 18:57:40 -0800

The Tunguska event was June 30, 1908. Very few think it was man-made. Even fewer than that think it was a secret nuclear bomb. But other than that you are spot on.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:02:36 -0800

Heritage Moments rock, agreed, agreed! 22 Minutes spoofs of same also rocked, but not quite so hard. re: the xmas tree -- is there any likewise cross-border gifting from the US?

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:03:01 -0800

Heritage Moments rock, agreed, agreed! 22 Minutes spoofs of same also rocked, but not quite so hard.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:38:29 -0800

re: the xmas tree -- is there any likewise cross-border gifting from the US? I imagine the closest parallels are the gestures of gratitude toward the citizens of Gander, and Gambo, Newfoundland, whose airports housed many grounded aircraft after September 11. Halifax itself housed 40 planes. Additionally, the intervention of Canada's embassy in Iran when ours was taken over in 1979 inspired many broad gestures (there were MERCI CANADA signs everywhere for weeks) and a long period of heightened mutual trust among the two governments. Though some say there's a lot that Canada does, without getting so much as a pat on the back in return.

By: nightchrome

nightchrome — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:38:41 -0800

It's great that the Heritage Moments spots actually do bring Canadians together in their awareness of common cultural events we might otherwise not have been aware of. I can think of a handful I know off by heart, as well as a few assorted animated shorts and such which are always on television. When I went back home for vacation this year, after a 2-3 year absence, I was pleased to see the Log Driver's Waltz was still being shown. I always liked that one, for some peculiar reason.

By: GhostintheMachine

GhostintheMachine — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 05:42:29 -0800

fish tick: Don't mind my grousing. Last year's coverage was pretty much as I indicated earlier. My memory's a little foggy, but I think the Herald interviewed two women in their late 80s, early 90s, who could only tell the reporter what others had told them happened. And I could just picture these poor girls, hearing year after year about this event they didn't remember or had only the vaguest remembrance of, wondering why their entire lives that they do remember was insignificant. Give it five more years and you'll likely understand my point better as the numbers dwindle further. *waves back, glad to see the Haligonian MeFites are well represented*

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 08:26:35 -0800

Glad to hear Gander/Gambo &c are getting props. They really deserve it.