The War Comes Home to Halifax

Welcome to Friday with Chairman Joe

   On this day in 1917 the French freighter Mont-Blanc carrying a cargo of explosives collided with the unloaded Norwegian freighter Imo in Halifax Harbor. The resulting explosion destroyed much of downtown Halifax, killing 1,900 people and injuring another 9,000. It was the largest man-made explosion on record until the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in WWII.

   There are so many what ifs surrounding the disaster, any one of which might have changed the outcome. Mont-Blanc had taken on her cargo of explosives in New York a few days earlier. She had come to Halifax to join a convoy to cross the Atlantic. Her cargo would be used by the Allies to make munitions for the war. She had arrived in Halifax's outer harbor too late in the day to enter the inner harbor. The anti-submarine nets had been raised for the night and she'd have to wait in the outer harbor until the morning, counting on the navy ships patrolling the area to protect her from any marauding German subs.

   The Imo had arrived in Halifax three days earlier from the Netherlands. All neutral ships crossing the Atlantic had to stop in Halifax for inspection. She was on her way to New York to pick humanitarian supplies for Belgium. She had hoped to leave Halifax on the fifth, but her supply of coal had arrived late in the day and she would have to wait till the morning of the sixth to leave the inner harbor.

   By 8:30 Thursday morning, the two ships were heading towards each other in the narrow channel that connected the inner from the outer harbor. Ships in the half-mile wide Narrows were supposed to keep to the right, just like cars on the highway. But earlier in the morning, Imo had been forced to her left by a vessel entering the harbor on the wrong side. Imo was trying to make up for time lost because of the late coal loading and was exceeding the harbor speed limit of six mph.
   The pilot on the Mont-Blanc, aware of his dangerous cargo, was traveling at just over one mph. In normal times ships with dangerous cargoes were not allowed into the inner harbor, but these rules were relaxed during the war.

   When the pilot on Mont-Blanc saw the Imo bearing down on him, he signaled with his horn that Imo needed to move out of his way. For some unknown reason Imo signaled back that she intended to hold her course. In desperation, the Mont-Blanc swerved left to avoid a collision. At this point Imo threw her engine into reverse. The ships ended up parallel to each other. Everything should have been ok, except Imo's engine took hold. Because she was unloaded, her propeller was partially out of the water which caused her bow to swerve right in reverse. She hit Mont Blanc opening a hole in her side. Barrels of benzene tied down on Mont-Blanc's deck tipped over and began leaking into the hold where the explosives were stowed.
  As Imo disengaged from Mont-Blanc, sparks ignited the benzene vapors. Soon a fire was raging out of control. The captain ordered his crew to abandon ship. He tried to warn off the small vessels that were coming to his aid, but he could not be heard above the roar of the flames. Nor could he warn the hundreds of people on shore gathering to watch the fire that they should take cover.

   Twenty minutes after the collision, Mont-Blanc exploded. Molten pieces of the ship fell all over the city, starting fires. The ship's half-ton anchor shaft landed three miles away. The bottom of the harbor was momentarily exposed. The returning waters caused a sixty foot tall tsunami that grounded the Imo on the opposite side of the channel.
   Rescue efforts began immediately. Firemen poured in from all the neighboring towns. The new military hospital built to care for soldiers wounded in Europe was quickly overwhelmed. The next day a blizzard hit the city, slowing the search for victims. The snow did help to put out the fires.
   During the investigation that followed, the Mont-Blanc was found responsible for the collision, which surprised people because Imo had been on the wrong side of the channel. But the Imo's captain and pilot were dead, while only one man from Mont-Blanc's crew had been killed. Someone had to pay. The Nova Scotia Supreme Court later found that both ships were equally at fault and manslaughter charges against Mont-Blanc's captain and pilot were dropped.
   The city marked the anniversary of the disaster the following year, but for the next fifty years tried to bury the memory as they rebuilt. On the fiftieth anniversary of the explosion Halifax began to mark the day with a ceremony.
  The year after the explosion, Halifax sent a large Christmas tree to Boston to thank that city for the assistance it had sent after the explosion. In 1971, the Christmas Tree Growers of Nova Scotia restarted that tradition which continues to this day. The tree is lit on  Boston Common and is the city's official Christmas tree.

The day after