At 9:05 a.m., in the harbor of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurs when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with another vessel.
A century ago
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Canada's History (formerly the HBC Beaver) has an excellent brief summary of the horrendous tragedy. The devastation that occurred is just mind numbing.
Only been to Halifax a couple of times. Given the age of the city it doesn't seem to have a lot of really old building like Montreal or Quebec City. I guess this is why.
the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age
I remember watching a documentary about it on the old series Turning Points In History on History Television, back when that channel was still worth watching.
It included pictures of the explosion's aftermath. The devastation was comparable to what one could see in the photos that were taken after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I met a survivor of the Halifax Explosion back in the 1970s. Mr. Murphy lost an eye in the explosion and went on to run a fascinating scrap yard in Berwick, Nova Scotia. He kept interesting cars that he felt shouldn't be scrapped and bits of aeroplanes. The Lockheed Hudson fuselage in the Halifax Aviation museum had served as his storage shed.
Could be the same one I saw. I remember a program that was talking about how US military engineers (I think) used what they learned from this explosion to design better bombs, including the concept of "air burst" for dropped ordnance. Largely due to the bowl shape of the harbour, IIRC.
My uncle, signed up for the merchant marines in 1915, as he lived near Yarmouth NS. He and his ship were there that day, just outside the harbour. The crew were summoned for streatcher bearer duty and had to work trough a huge Nor'Easter the day after the blast. He lived to 99 years.
In a rare display of relevancy, Global News actually has a series of articles about the Halifax Explosion
https://globalnews.ca/tag/halifax-explosion/
As the Halifax explosion, the Kursk and other military accidents show, ammunition explosions are very devastating...
Yes,what a tragedy the Halifax explosion was,we learned about it in our history books in about grade five.
But today Canada is celebrating Marc Lepine day, a day which will live forever in infamy.
All together now: teardrops are falling on our heads.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQU0rSZr79s
Juthtin needs to go to his safe place,somewhere that he can perform a job he is actually qualified for. How about House Boy at Gerry Butts place?
For a very good article on this Halifax explosion find a copy of the Royal Canadian Legions Dec. Magazine. Not sure if its available online but it is an excellent and factual documentary.
ms laflamme of ctv did a live on site report from halifax Tuesday nite.
and made an enormous factual error. she claimed that a bigger man-made explosion did not happen until Hiroshima.
this is abjectly inaccurate, that happened with the Trinity test weeks earlier.
this is how rumours and misinformation get spread. everything wit' a grain of salt now . . . .