GUEST ARTICLE: The Halifax Disaster, 1917

I’ve wanted to put this story out there for a while, but sometimes, you just have to acknowledge that some people are better placed to do the job than you are. Next week sees the anniversary of a tragedy that rocked Canada, and as you’ll see, my podcast co-host and purveyor of The Aviation Show on YouTube, Matt Bone, has a very personal connection with it…

On the morning of 6th December 1917, below decks of HMCS Niobe, the Diadem-class protected cruiser moored in Halifax, Nova Scotia that now served as a depot ship for the fledgling Canadian Navy, Lloyd Eckmire’s friends popped their heads around the bulkhead to announce that there was a ship on fire and that they were going to watch. My great-grandfather told them he would follow them on deck when he had finished doing what he was doing. He never told the family what was so important to not head off with his mates. The family legend is that he was peeling potatoes.

At around 09:05 am, the French munitions ship, SS Mont Blanc, exploded following a collision in The Narrows, the passageway between Halifax Harbour and Bedford Basin, with the Belgian relief ship Imo. In an instant, thousands were dead, many thousands more injured and Halifax on one shore and Dartmouth on the other were mostly destroyed. The dazed survivors, my great-grandfather included, gathered themselves and got to work helping the wounded, rescuing the trapped, fighting the fires, and gathering the dead.

The events that lead to what was once considered the biggest explosion in history before Hiroshima were innocuous: two ships, one entering the harbour and the other leaving. They found themselves in the same lane and both reacted too late. That one was en route to New York for desperately needed supplies for the starving Belgian populace and the other was overloaded with the munitions that were bringing death and destruction upon thousands was an irony not lost on anyone.

Mont Blanc was not the sort of ship that the French would have turned to earlier in the war. She was old, slow and not in the best shape. Her skipper. Captain Aimé Le Medec, was new to command but had spent his life at sea. Her crew was a mix of sailors from the allied and neutral nations, many of whom had sailed together before and had known each other for years. Interestingly. she had an American baker on board. You can only wonder over the banter between the French crew and the baker’s American ways.

While in New York, the Mont Blanc’s holds were refitted. They watched as workmen in felt shoes lined the holds with wooden panelling, fixing it with copper nails so that there would be no sparks. When the loading began, Mont Blanc’s holds were stuffed with every sort of explosives. Once the holds were full, they were sealed and her decks stacked with drums of benzol. Next to her two guns, bolted fore and aft, the weapons shells were stacked.

Deemed too slow for a New York convoy, Mont Blanc headed north to Halifax to hopefully join a British slow convoy that was forming. After a tense few days steaming north alone, the ship arrived on the evening of 5th December. The relief of the safety of Halifax was put on hold when her newly arrived pilot Francis Mackey informed them that the torpedo nets had been lowered and they could not enter the harbour that night. They dropped anchor and waited

Imo too had seen better days. Built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, she was originally christened as the White Star Line ship SS Runic; then the cargo liner had been used in many trades before being chartered by the Belgian Relief Commission to take on supplies in New York in the autumn of 1917. Imo arrived at Halifax on 3rd December 1917. Halifax having been deemed a check port by the Royal Navy, a ship like Imo arriving from a neutral nation with a variety of crew had to clear all the paperwork before being cleared to sail on. Coupled to this, there was a delay in re-coaling her, so her departure for New York slipped. When she finally got underway, she was empty, riding very high in the water and witnesses remember propellers and rudder being visible. This made her tricky to handle and in the tight confines of The Narrows, this would be compounded.

Halifax in war time was thriving. The harbour had been established in the 18th Century to facilitate Wolfe’s campaign towards Louisburg and Quebec City that would end with his death, but by 1917, the city was heaving. In Europe, this had been the worst year of the war so far. The populace of the fighting nations was beginning to view it as a war without end. A war that was, in materiel and increasingly, men, being supplied from the other side of the Atlantic.

The seaports along the Atlantic coast of North America bustled, and as Halifax was the last port before the ocean crossing, it was full of soldiers, sailors, ships of every description. In late 1917, the population of the town was around 55,000. The twin cities of Halifax and Dartmouth supplied the workers and their families to keep the machine fed, clothed, and armed. Caught in the middle were the communities of Africville and Turtle Grove, populated by African-Canadians and people of the Mi’kmaq First Nation respectively. Halifax was, and still is, the provincial capital of Nova Scotia, but then it was also the capital of its own Dominion. Halifax was home to a variety of prestigious institutions including Dalhousie University, the Royal Naval College of Canada, the School for the Deaf and Dumb, and the School for the Blind. Halifax’s hospital, Victoria General, which specialised in the treatment of tuberculosis, was the best in the province.

Halifax Harbour is not a classic harbour. With the Atlantic to the south-east, its entrance is dominated on the eastern side by McNab Island. The substantial artillery batteries on the fortified island were matched by more on the western, mainland, side. Once past McNab, you are in the main port and reach the Halifax and Dartmouth waterfronts, but Bedford Basin, the large anchorage used for the assembly of convoys, was further to the northwest, through the thin connection of The Narrows which separated Halifax and Dartmouth. The Basin was where you knew you were safe after crossing the Atlantic, or the last place you felt safe before heading east. It was over 15 miles from The Basin to the sea, so diligent piloting was vital.

As Imo slipped her moorings in The Basin on 6th December 1917, Halifax was coming to life. With the winter sun slow to rise and a war on, school started late, so many school children were on their way to class. Shops and businesses were opening. The military were going about their routines, and on HMCS Niobe the naval examination service office was monitoring the passages of ships in and out of the port. A bit further out, anchored off the Dartmouth waterfront, HMS Highflyer, the lead ship of the Highflyer-class of protected cruiser, along with the merchant-cruisers HMS Knight Templar and HMS Changuniola, huge warships in comparison with the other ships in the harbour, also kept an eye on the arrivals and departures.

It was a beautiful, clear crisp winter’s day.

Disasters are rarely triggered by one single terrible event.