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The train dispatcher of the Halifax train station, when he heard news of the burning ammunition ship, directed all inbound trains to stop in their tracks immediately, and back away if possible, signing his message off by saying he is not going to make it out alive.
"Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys." - Patrick "Vince" Coleman's last message.
My favorite anecdote from the Halifax blast is how one of the Mont Blanc sailors saved a Micmac mother and child. As the crew was heading for safety on the far side of a ridge, there was a woman sitting on her porch with her baby who would be directly hit by the blast. The language barrier prevented the sailor from explaining the unfolding disaster, so, time being of the essence, the sailor grabbed the child and ran. The confused mother ran after the sailor and both were saved.
For a perspective, I've read the Halifax explosion was "equivalent of more than 3,000 tons of TNT, nearly four times higher than the Beirut explosion estimate", and the Beirut one looked absolutely devastating
I had read for years that it was 4,000 tons! One-Fifth the power of the Hiroshima atom bomb! BTW there ARE photographs of the mushroom cloud--one taken about 16 seconds after the explosion from a Norwegian ship waiting to enter the harbor. They saw the exploding cloud but the sound hadn't reached them yet! Lots of books WON'T reproduce this picture instead used a sketchy newspaper drawing.
@@CortexNewsService I think part of why could be that we (on the Halifax side at least) have citadel hill that causes most of downtown to be very steep. And also it emptied the harbour which took a lot of energy
Vince Coleman was an On Duty Train Despatcher for the Canadian Goverment Railways. On finding out a explosition would occur, he remained at his post rather than escaping and chose to warn those along the line that the incoming passenger train would be in harms way. This was his final message : "Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys." R.I.P Vince Coleman, heroic railwayman who should be better remembered for his sacrifice on that fateful day.
There are some really brave railway workers out there. At the terrible train collision at Gare de Lyon in Paris in 1988, the driver of the stationary train at the station waiting to depart, saw the incoming train come barrelling at him, on the wrong (occupied) track and clearly much too fast to stop. Instead of jumping out and running for it, which would have saved his life, he stayed in his cab and kept yelling warnings over the loudspeaker, telling ppl to immidiately evacuate the train and run off the platform. He saved many ppl that day, and he kept warning, looking right at the incoming train, until the moment it slammed into his cab and instantly killed him. In such horrible cases, the true heroes shine, but unfortunately they almost always pay with their lives. One can only hope, that all the ppl, who lived due to their heroic sacrifice, will live good lives in tribute to the gift, they were given.
@@dfuher968 The sheer amount of energy involved in transport by train often makes them prone to moments where heroism happens... There's was a fellow, named Jesus Garcia Corona, who's often called "The Casey Jones of Mexico," but I find that fundamentally _wrong;_ if anything, Casey Jones should be called "The Jesus Garcia of Mississippi," for two reasons: Firstly, Jesus Garcia's heroism happened _before_ Casey Jones;' Second, and probably more importantly, Casey Jones saved the lives of a passenger train full of people at the cost of his life alone, and yes, that is _absolutely_ heroic and he should be lauded for it. Jesus Garcia saved the lives of _an entire mining town_ of people by taking a burning train full of explosives out of a rail depot in a mining town (that would be _full of explosives)_ and backing it up the line far enough that the explosion only killed himself. There's a _reason_ he's now formally known as Jesus Garcia Corona de Nacozari. There's also Benjamin Gimbert (who _actually_ survived, though with no expectation of doing so) and James Nightall (who, honestly, probably didn't need to die; there was no reason for Nightall to re-board the locomotive after uncoupling the burning wagon), who pulled a wagon full of burning explosives out of a station, leaving _the rest of their train of explosives_ behind them, losing their own lives (and admittedly killing the poor SOB in the signalman's box) but preventing _the entire train of explosives_ from leveling _a town;_ that's called the Soham Rail Disaster. Lots of heroism on the rails, much of it self-sacrificing in nature.
As a Canadian, I'm fairly familiar with this explosion. However, I think you're the first person I've come across that explained WHY the SS IMO was on the wrong side of the channel.
What?? They pass like Europe does. Left side of the road driving so they drive left and pass on right. The Mont Blanc was the one on the wrong side of the channel. They should have be left with he shore line on their left side. They don’t drive like America…. Drive on right pass on left. You got your brain installed backwards.
Used to live there for years. It hits differently to hear this great retelling of the story, knowing the place. Of interesting note, Boston sent relief by train almost immediately. In 1918, Halifax sent a Christmas tree to express their thanks. The tradition was resumed in 1971 and continues to this day. 🎄
@@arthanor9631 he had a big ass tree in his way is what he had. Wanted to build a garage. Tree had to go one way or the other. It was just fortunate that they selected it to be sent. It was going to be cut anyway
@@eisenerballer Thats hilarious! Very convenient then, to get both the honor and the garage. Makes me wonder now if they consider the future fate of a tree before selecting it. Better to cut one like your uncle's than one that could stay healthy for years to come.
I saw the Christmas tree heading to Boston a few years back. It's a cool experience to just be driving along the highway and suddenly see a massive tree going the other way
The SS Imo increased her speed above the harbor limit. The SS Clara was on the wrong side of the passage. The Stella Maris should have been farther starboard as well. The Mont Blanc was the only ship following correct procedure. Yet the Captain of the Mont Blanc was the first to be blamed.
Supposedly the scientists at Los Alamos placed bets ahead of the Trinity test on how many "Halifaxes" the blast would be, i.e. using "Halifax" as a unit of measure for size of explosion.
My dad was in his cradle about two miles from the epicentre. That AM my grandmother had noticed that the rising sun was in his eyes, so she closed the leather hood. When the blast came my aunt was blown down the stairs and all the windows blew out. My aunt was fine, so she ran upstairs to find that the leather hood on dad's cradle had been pierced by dagger like shards of glass. He was fine. Dad lived to be 97 and when he died, he was one of only a handful of survivors still alive. Now go read about the 1945 Bedford magazine explosion, when it almost happened AGAIN! Dad survived that one too out in a lake in a boat as debris rained down all around him.
The other really unfortunate thing about this explosion was, it was in December in Canada. There was a nasty snowstorm that hit Halifax the next day, and the residents no longer had a roof over their heads. Just an awful situation all around. But one worth remembering.
Based on your explanation, I'm surprised that the Imo wasn't found to have the larger portion of the blame... Why does it seem like their mistakes not receive much scrutiny compared to the Mont Blanc who seemed to have been put in an impossible position by factors outside their own control?
You could argue that, but at the same time, you could also say the Mont Blanc could have tried to turn into the channel, versus towards the shore, clearing the Imo, or you could argue they could have beached. It was an interesting situation to be put in, and you can't really cast all the blame on one person
"Dangerous Driving" in terms of road speak. They were too fast, and they were on the wrong course. Definitely the worse mistakes. Just to stretch the analogy further: You put blame on the car that drives over the speed limit and on the wrong side of the highway, instead of the car that got hit by them after it "failed" to evade the reckless drivers by trying to go off-road or whatever.
@@EarlTheWhiteNinja yes the Mont Blanc could have reacted better to the course of the Imo, but that ignores the fact that the Imo was the one who put the Mont Blanc into the rough position it was in. The Imo was going too fast, and was in the wrong place, and putting blame on the people who were actually following procedure, and just got caught in a bad situation seems unfair.
@@N1ghthavvk the video itself stated, mont blanc was carrying extremely dangerous cargo -- the captain knew he needed to avoid a collision AT ALL COSTS... which resulted in the fateful decision to turn back into the channel after taking the bad turn towards the eastern bank. if you're driving a tanker trailer on a highway and an imminent collision is on course, you should pull off the road, even if it means you might explode on your own in a ditch... that's the common sense to save lives. ultimately, like every disaster that is retold on the channel, it's a compounding of multiple errors that led to the tragedy. i wonder if this one led to some permanent changes in safety standards, even in wartime, for dangerous cargo in harbour. at the very least, i would expect most captains to know the dire consequences better and not repeat the same awful course corrections. it still boggles my mind that such collisions never involved direct radio communications, which should be available to both ships in that era (and indeed, ALL ships by now).
The imo was just trying to avoid collisions as well. Admittedly, there was some very stupid decisions when it came to things like safe speeds for that harbor, but realistically there's likely not much that could have been done to avoid it by the time the two ships met. Something to keep in mind is that these ships take a while to commence an adjustment in heading, so essentially each ship was trying to adjust to the other ship's previous adjustment. The Mont Blanc didn't want to beach themselves, for obvious reasons, so they tried to claim the right of way. The Imo couldn't yield the right of way due to it's lack of maneuverability at those speeds, so it signalled accordingly. The Mont then tried to cross on the other side, and the Imo tried to decelerate. Both ships were trying to get out of each other's ways, but their attempts to evade each other ended up causing the collision.
I live near Halifax now, and if your from Canada you usually know about it. It's probably the defining moment in the history of this city. Thanks for covering it.
It's worth remembering the Mont Blanc was a French ship with a French speaking crew they tried to warn bystanders when they got to shore, but lacked the words to do so. Some are said to have picked up children and run away from the ship to try to get people to follow them, though I can't confirm this.
@@BA-gn3qb if any did it would be a diffrent french, Acadian french which is spoken in the maritimes( and Halifax and nova scotia as a whole is mostly english) Acadian french is so diffrent from the french spoken in france that they may as well have been speaking Japanese
@@acadiant2756 not true at all, Acadien french is pretty difficult for most other french speakers, but nowhere near different enough to be incomprehensible. It's closer to a Londoner or Australian trying to understand a thick Scots brogue, takes a bit of getting used to
I live in Canada and the main reason I know of this is because every year as part of our French class we had to choose a topic to do a speech on(increasing in length each year), and every single year this one guy chose this as a topic. Each year he would add a few extra sentences that would pad out the time to meet the new minimum length.
@@mangofoxx Perhaps not. The person had already done this multiple times and isn't a stranger to the content. Maybe a slackard for padding it, but certantly better than that one guy who had never heard about manatees and tries to do a 20 minute presentation on them!
Not so fun fact: The SS Imo was formerly called the SS Runic, which once belonged to the White Star Line, the same company which operated the SS Atlantic and RMS Titanic. Atlantic and Titanic both sank near to Halifax and had a substantial amount of their victims' bodies buried there. Coincidentally, White Star Lines biggest rival, Cunard Line, was founded in Halifax. White Star Line always had a part to play in their rival's hometown's worst 3 maritime disasters.
@notexpatjoe5687 I just thought it was a funny coincidence that White Star Line had some involvement in these incidents, even if Imo hadn't been Runic for 22 years.
I grew up in Massachusetts so every year we would hear about this story around Christmas time. Boston sent a lot of aid to Halifax after the disaster and every year Halifax supplies Boston with its Christmas tree as thanks.
This is the first time I've heard the Imo had already passed two ships on the "wrong" side and didn't have the capacity to turn back. I've always wondered why the didn't want to yield, but this puts things in a totally different perspective for me.
One of the other videos on this said he had a temper. He had to have his ship fixed once. When it was time to pay, he took issue with the nationality of the person that owned the shipyard an refued to pay. I think he also attacked the guy. The cops had to hunt him down, impound his ship an make him pay. This event he was being pushed down the priority list making him late. Getting loaded for coal to late to leave that night probably had him mad all night. Already mad an in a hurry enoght to leave first thing in the moring and speed, then forced to move for two other ships. He was probably cussing pretty bad when he found himself nose to nose with a third ship. I think him being pissed off was the issue. The horn exchange and then the other ship thinking he had time to cut across after, sounds like they were pretty far apart when the original refusal was made.
It's one of those things where you have to go to Halifax to really understand how big this explosion was. I remember being there and getting further and further away from the water thinking surely I would have been safe at this distance, but no, I would have most likely died. The Maritime Museum has exhibits on the explosion and one of the largest collections of artifacts from the Titanic since recovered bodies were buried in the city.
The Motherhouse for the Sisters of Charity of Halifax was on the reverse slope of one of the hills. My 8th grade teacher in 1965 told stories of her and other sisters (she was a novice at the time) going through the city after the blast and fire looking for people to help and bodies to recover. It was her 16th birthday. What a way to remember your 16th birthday.
"Not well known"? I guess, if you aren't Canadian... My great-grandmother was quite a ways from the harbour, washing my infant great-uncle in a bassinet near the kitchen door that day, but of course facing the front window wondering what was going on. When the ship exploded, she lost an eye to a shard of the shattered front window. But my great-uncle was unscathed, as the explosion tore the front door off its hinges... landing directly across the bassinet, effectively forming a shield for him. Luckily for my existence, her husband was working on the railroad away from home that day!
Indeed, can't recommend this song enough! Especially the verse about Vince Coleman: One man, Patrick Coleman, in the railway's employ sent word: 'Stop the trains or they'll all be destroyed This will be my last message, farewell to you, boys.' For a true hero's death he had earned
Coincidentally, I was telling my friend from Australia about the Halifax explosion last night. I first learned about it from a Canadian Heritage Minute as a little kid - a series of short history lessons that used to play on TV during commercial breaks. That one focused on the perspective of Vince Coleman, the train dispatcher who stayed behind to telegraph incoming trains, warning them to stop, and thus died in the blast. Nobody had explained the Imo's navigation to me before this though. Thank you.
@@filipinordabest Wasn't until '38 they discovered fission. At the time I think the most they had was the fact Marie Curie was doing some research into "a theory called radioactivity" But I could be totally wrong on that one
Speed limits shouldn't exist. They are literally pointless and arbritary. Their only purpose is for the state to leech more money off of us. Bad drivers are more of a danger than some meaningless arbritary limit on speed.
@@AverageAlienbad drivers are the one who tend to break the speed limit anyway, if you are going 40 in a narrow road near a school, where the speed limit is like 10 then that's call being reckless. Speed limits are fine, we do need to mandate a certain maximum speed for certain roads, otherwise plenty of people will drive way too fast at the risk of others.
Every year, for the past 51 years, The City of Halifax sends a Christmas tree south to Boston in continual thanks for Beantown's prompt medical and relief aid following the explosion.
Born and raised in Halifax I take the time every year to remember those that lost their lives and the many others that suffered life long disabilities in this tragic event. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to cope with this at a time when they did not have the luxuries and resources we have today.
In the Marine Museum downtown they have a large exhibit dedicated to the explosion. Seeing solid iron over a foot thick twisted and warped like soft clay sent a chill down my spine.
Hello from a Nova Scotia native and current resident of a Halifax suburb. I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to make this video. I always enjoy your work, but this one hits especially close to home. Its surprising how 'unknown' this story is, especially in the younger generation, even in Canada. One of our cross-harbour ferries is named after the railroad telegraph operator who sacrificed his life to try to save the lives onboard an inbound passenger train, and one of the new Royal Canadian Navy tugs under construction is going to be named Stella Maris. The CSS Acadia (the prefix CSS meaning Canadian Survey Ship, a name she earned after WWII when she returned to service with Canadian Hydrographic), her pier-mate HMCS Sackville (the last remaining Flower Class Corvette) and the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic are exceptional museums if you're ever in the area.
Crazy how this story is not told more often in transportation safety. An incident of this magnitude reminds me of the explosion in Lebanon a few years back.
My Grandmother lived near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island approximately 180 kilometres (111 miles) from Halifax when this happened. She would have been around 11 or 12 years old at the time and she remembered feeling the ground shaking when the explosion happened. The earthquake caused by the explosion also broke windows in Truro, Nova Scotia approximately 80 kilometres (49 miles) away.
My great grand mother lived in halifax at the time of the explosion, and she was engaged to one of the fire fighters who responded that morning. He didn't make it, and she eventually married my great grandfather. It's always neat to imagine how big the explosion was when you're going over the Mackay bridge. Nice to see some hometown history on this channel! :)
One of my moms friends' grandmother was late for school the day of the explosion. She was far enough away that she was fine, but she kept going and when she got to the school her whole class was dead. I don't remember all the details of the story but its awful to think about. And I still remember the heritage minute they played all the time
Thanks for covering this! I have always been moved by this tragedy. Interesting fact, the Acadia is actually the CSS Acadia (Canadian Survey Ship) and was the first ship built to survey the Canadian North. She was commissioned by the RCN for both world wars and is the only surviving ship to have served in both.
one of the reasons why the explosion was so powerful was because when it blew up, the force that would normally be lost travelling down to the sea floor was reflected back by the bowl nature of the harbour, this was actually studied afterwards and is why the Atomic bomb was set as an airbust in 1945; to increase its power. Also the Mont Blanc's captain was initially seen at fault because the entire Mont Blanc crew survived because they abandoned the ship so early rather than trying to fight the fire. Most of the population saw this not only as cowardly but also negligence, as even though they probably could have done very little to stop the blaze they lived while 1600 people did not even though it was THEIR ship. Not a good look no matter the circumstances.
The toluene onboard was used in F1 cars back in the 80s where was no restriction on the type of fuel. Cars made 1400 HP on it. It was banned eventually. Also was used as rocket fuel.
Toluene was never used as rocket fuel. It was and still is used in high octane racing fuel because it's resistant to predetonation, allowing higher compression / boost.
@@tomkandy Toluene was used briefly as a rocket fuel in the 1930’s. But it lost out to other fuels that were better performance and better properties so it is not used anymore.- Reddit
Toluene isn't more flammable or energetic than gasoline. It is pure chemical product, so its more consistent but for the relevant properties here, it's equivalent to gasoline.
@@usingthecharlim When you look up the fuel data there is not much difference, but Toluene burns much faster than petrol or diesel. That's why car are much faster using it. Just like the Top Fuel cars on methanol and nitromethane.
Wow. The quality of these videos just keeps getting better... you really have a way to tell a story. Such a huge disaster that I'm surprised I hadn't heard more about it. Also, congratulations on the WoWs sponsorship, I always thought it would fit your channel nicely
I was born and lived in Nova Scotia for most of my life, about 3 hours away from Halifax. Not during the explosion, obviously, but it's history is everywhere in Nova Scotia, especially in museums and information centers. My grandmother was living in Halifax with her husband at the time. I can't remember what he did for work but it was something that had him working around the wharf. When the explosion happened she had no way of knowing if her husband was ok and wasn't allowed to go down to the wharf, plus she had children to tend to. After hours and hours, her husband finally showed up, I can only imagine the relief she felt when he walked through the door.
There is a great song by The Longest Johns about this tragedy called fire & flame and it goes like this: Let me sing you a song, boys, of fire and flame Of a French ammo ship, the Mont-Blanc was her name How the brave Nova Scotia was never the same On the morning when Halifax burned 'Twas in early December 1917 She was packed to the gills with Grade A T-N-T They were bound for the fighting in High Germany When towards them the other ship turned The Norweigan ship Imo, some fault in her gears She struck Mont-Blanc's side like the mightiest of spears And the benzol ignited the captain's worst fears As the fire consumed bow to stern The people gazed on from their safe distant rooms Watched the soot and the smoke fill the sky with their plumes But within, the ships cargo would spell all their dooms How were they to know to be concerned? The crew rowed for shore, lest they burn or they drown They cried, "Save your souls!" as they ran through the town But their warnings were nothing but strange foreign sounds For the townsfolk, no French had they learned One man, Patrick Coleman, in the railway's employ Sent word, "Stop the trains or they'll all be destroyed This will be my last message, farewell to you, boys" For a true hero's death he had earned An explosion, colossal, when the munitions blew Devastation and debris for miles fired through The Mont-Blanc was gone, and the town with it, too And the waters raged up in return There were heroes and angels all fated to die Over two thousand souls laid to rest by-and-by We will always remember and lift a glass high To the morning when Halifax burned
I live in Prince Edward Island, about 250 kilometers from Halifax (it's about a five-hour trip including the ferry off the Island) and was working outside an abandoned home up the road this week. The landowner took me over and showed me one of the windows, which had been cracked in the Explosion. There were windows blown out all across the Maritimes from the shockwave.
During peace time, ships carrying explosives are required to fly a precise type of flag to warn others. The Mont Blanc being a French ship in 1917, it didn't fly the required flag so as not to paint a crosshair inviting German U-Boots to sink it.
@@patanouketgersiflet9486 Germany by 1917 had already sunk quite a number of neutral ships supplying Britain and France with food and weapons. A huge factor in eventually provoking the USA to join.
Then, the day after the explosion, Halifax was cut off from basically the rest of the world by a blizzard that stopped trains and road traffic. 16 inches (41cm) of snow kept more supplies from coming in for multiple days, and those without shelter were now even more exposed. The snow did help put out some of the lingering fires, so that's a plus, overall a massive disaster largely unknown outside Canada. In the Seattle area we were never taught about it in school directly, but I did learn about it as a tangential piece to a paper I had to write on the impact of submarines in WWI.
Mach wave (also called Mach front, Mach effect, Mach reflection, Mach stem or Mach stem effect), named after Ernst Mach, is the name given to the pressure wave resulting from a bomb exploding above the ground, which is formed by the pressure wave and its reflection on the ground.The air within this pressure wave reaches velocities of several 100 km/s and therefore has enormous destructive power. This effect was deliberately brought about for the first time - under operational conditions - when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb exploded at an altitude of about 580 meters. Already on December 6, 1917, this effect was used in the non-nuclear Halifax explosion, when the ship Mont Blanc, lying in the water, exploded and the shock wave was reflected by the water.
I live a couple kilometers from where it happened, we still send a giant Christmas tree to Boston every year as a thank you for their massive support over one hundred years ago
SAME! I've heard this story my whole life and this is the first time anyone ever talked about how they ended up in that position in the first place, other than 'being in a hurry'.
Part of the tragedy of stories like this is all of the "if onlys." If only this or that or some other thing had happened just a little bit differently ...
Most man-made disasters tend to happen this way. They're almost always a perfect storm in which a half-dozen unlikely circumstances all occur simultaneously. We tend to make the mistake of thinking that one or two minor oversights aren't a big deal, that a little leniency with safety precautions won't cause a disaster. Individually, none of the mistakes seem particularly hazardous. Collectively, they can have tremendous consequences. It's almost like getting a royal flush in poker. . . The odds are extremely unlikely, but never zero.
The largest contributions to Halifax's recovery after the blast came from Boston, MA. Every winter holiday season thereafter, the people of Halifax delivered a giant Christmas tree to the Faneuil Hall Market Square as thanks. So far, the tradition remains unbroken.
When the news reached Boston, the Chief Medical Officer there immediately began loading Doctors and nurses onto a Train. he then sent a Telegram to Halifax after the train left stating something along the lines of apologizing for not openly telling them ahead of time and just sending the train
Which is just good emergency response. Help first, niceties later. Halifax sent them a Christmas tree as a thank you (Nova Scotia has long had excellent trees, used to be where the Royal Navy sourced their masts from). They restarted the tradition it 1971 and do it every year now.
Thank you you are the first you helped me visualize the extent of the damages inflicted to poor Haligonians and the anchor of the Mont Blanc blasted 20 km south of Halifax !!! Wow!
I know all about this and actually searched specifically to see if you did a video about it. But I've live in NS my whole life, growing up in Cape Breton and actually live in Dartmouth now so I learned it all in school. Stoked you did a video about it all! ❤️
Let me sing you a story of fire and flame Of a French Ammo Ship the Mont Blanc was her name How the brave Novia Scotia was never the same On the morning when Halifax burned It was late in December 1917 She was packed to the gills with grade A TNT They were bound for the fighting in high Germany When towards her the other ship turned The Norwegian ship Imo, some fault in her gears Struck the Mont Blanc like the mightiest of spears And the Benzol ignited, the Captain's worst fears As the fire consumed bow to stern The people gazed on from their safe distant rooms| Watched the soot and the smoke fill the sky with their plumes But within the ship's cargo would spell all their doom How were they to know to be concerned? The crew rowed for shore lest they burn or they drown They cried "Save your souls!" as they ran through the town But their warnings were nothing but strange foreign sounds For the townsfolk no French had they learned One man Patrick Coleman in the railroad's employ Sent word "Stop the trains or they'll all be destroyed. This will be my last message, farewell to you boys." For a true hero's death he had earned An explosion colossal when the munitions blew Devastation and debris for miles fired through The Mont Blanc was gone and the town with it too And the waters raged up in return There were heros and angels all fated to die Over 2000 souls laid to rest by and by. We will always remember and lift a glass high To the morning when Halifax burned.
fun fact: the Province of Nova Scotia has hand picked and gifted the City of Boston their official Christmas tree each year since 1971, in commemoration of Boston’s assistance during the aftermath of the explosion.
An interesting related story is the SS Richard Montgomery that sunk after running aground in the UK during WWII. It sits 50ft under water still loaded with 1400 Tons of various bombs. No explosion yet.
The 1100lbs shaft of the Mont Blanc anchor landed 2.35 miles away. To make everything worse, the very next day, Halifax was hit by a 100 year blizzard and the relief trains from Boston got stuck in the snow
I am from Halifax. I'm sure many tourists walking through downtown wonder why the north facing city hall clock is wrong. It is stopped at the time of the explosion.
18m - or, with an explosion of this size, would basically be about as high as the depth of the harbour was, pushing all water away making the seabed visible for a short moment. its pretty crazy.
The Longest Johns have a song about this called Fire And Flame. Also, a little surprised Drachinifel hasn’t covered this topic yet… or at least as far as I know. Might be buried somewhere in his thousand’s of videos.
I knew about the Halifax explosion, but I had no idea that submarine nets were a thing. Thank you very much for having me learn about this amazing technology. Cheers!
I really appreciate the sailing explanation of what happened here. Sixty Symbols have a good video about the chemistry of the Mont Blanc's cargo. ua-cam.com/video/u5uTAt_A8BY/v-deo.html
I see you changed all your video titles/thumbnails to be more clickbaity. I can see why you did it, but I miss the old ones. They were so much more calm.
Perfect illustration of what happen… I grew up in Halifax and heard the story many times from my father and the few survivors when I was a kid…. I got chills just listening to this… thanks for sharing.
Hmcs Acadia was closed to the public last time I was down to the waterfront a month ago. I think they were doing some conservation work on it. Well worth taking the tour if you ever get the opportunity
How the blame wasn't placed solely on the IMO is so bizarre. Its known that they blasted their horn twice, signaling refusal to yield the right of way WHEN THEY WERE ON THE WRONG SIDE. That would be like a drunk driver driving on the wrong side of a highway and slamming into a military cargo truck and both drivers being blamed.
I think the reason may have been related to the old saying "dead men tell no tales". I mean, people wanted someone to be held accountable, but how does one hold a person (or persons) accountable when they are dead and therefore not able to defend themselves? We also have a bad habit of trying to blame victims.
@emerybonner7973 hitler can't defend himself, doesn't stop us from judging him. Rightfully so. Its probably due to all the anti french sentiment in the region and it being an all French crew. Still insane how people at the time knew they IMO refused to yield and yet still blamed the military ship.
When we were there a few years ago we stood by the canon that was thrown miles from the explosion. It is mind blowing to look way off to the distance and think that it came all that way. The maritime museum alone is worth a trip to Halifax. Cheers !
I first learned of this story, from a book I read, when I was six. It stuck with me, since I was young and 🥺, till this day. I remember talking about it, to my Dad. He told me, a kinda realistic version of it, which in turn scared, the crap outta me😱!!! That was 1968, and I still will watch ANY documentary, I come across.
Good Video! Just a few additions to your information. In French, an "I" is pronounced like an "E" in English, so the ship's name is pronounced like EMO. The submarine net extended from McNabb's Island to the Halifax side of the shore of the harbour mouth. When the Mont Blanc arrived at the mouth of Halifax Harbour too late to be admitted, her Captain was so concerned that he had the red hazardous cargo flag taken down. He was nervous that flying the red flag would make the Mont Blanc more of a target while at anchor outside the harbour that night. The Captain was in such a hurry to get inside the safety of the harbour the next morning, that he did not remember to raise the red warning flag. This would have given some warning to other ships that the Mont Blanc was a floating bomb. Your explanation of the reason that the Imo was out of position in the Narrows was the best I have ever seen. Good work.
Ever walk down a hall and someone is going in the opposite direction and you both step in the same direction to avoid each other and it produces this awkward dance? Basically that, with ships and tons of explosives.
The RMS Olympic sailed from Halifax just a couple days before carrying 6000+ troops to the war in Europe. If she'd been delayed by engine trouble or bad weather... Doesn't bare thinking about.
Interesting. I knew she'd been in to Halifax (there's a lovely painting of her in dazzle camo tied up in Halifax) but I didn't know how soon before the explosion that was.
@@doomfork I believe Historic Travels (wonderful channel, you'll love it if you like this one) RMS Olympic timeline includes a bit more detail on where she was. I can't remember exactly but it really was by a day or three that she missed being wrecked and I think she was moored quite close. Anyway check out his video it's great. As well the Britannic, Lusitania and Titanic timelines. They're about 2h and very detailed so grab some beers or snacks. ua-cam.com/video/1NlvOuA_-zI/v-deo.html
@@221b-l3tI mean Halifax as a whole was flattened with citadel hill really being the only thing standing because it’s dug right into the top of Halifax’s hill, I’m not sure it would’ve survived it tbh since the ship detonated right next to the dock yards
Though how horrifically tragic this event was, the cargo list of Mont Blanc is almost hilarious in how dangerous it was. 1600 dead, and 9000 blinded are dismal numbers. Standing right by the window when viewing a huge fire is still a problem we have today. Almost all the videos of the tragic explosion in Beirut, and Tianjin shows this. Of course, we are inquisitive beings and want a better look, but we never think about a potential explosion blowing shards of glass at us. The snowstorm the following day and the rest of the winter is rarely mentioned, but finding a roof and warmth for a whole city is not easy.
Here in Boston, to commemorate the Halifax Explosion, the people of Nova Scotia donate a tree for our Christmas every year for over 50 years continuously now. This was because upon the news of the disaster reaching Boston, a train filled with relief supplies was dispatched to Halifax. It took 2 days to travel because of blizzards and harsh weather, but it made it to the city on the morning of December 8th, distributing food, medical supplies, and relieving the local medical staff with fresh personnel.
There's so many side stories like the Christmas Tree , buckets full of eyeballs , Halifax's first fire truck and it's only survivor there's some great books I know who reads books anymore . I myself am from Dartmouth and played on the cannon that was launched when the ship exploded in the late 60's that is.
One of the CP passenger cars involve in this explosion still exists. Its located at Toronto Railway museum used as lounge by the staff in the round house I feel this car should be taken to pier 21in Halifax ,NS. as part of history
And not words about Vince Coleman, the Halifax train station train dispatcher, that refused to evacuate, because he knew a passenger train was coming and he sent a morse message telling them to stop, saving the lives of 300 + passengers. Coleman's Morse code message reads as follows: Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys.
I live 5 hours away from Halifax and I was told this story by my grandmother who was told by her grandparents That when the halifax explosion happened, the explosion was so violent. Here in Cape Breton which like I said, is 5 hours away. They heard the plates and silverware and cutlery rattle in the cupboards.
Play World of Warships here: wo.ws/3TVY77m
Thank you World of Warships for sponsoring this video.
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No more sponsored ads. If You continue, I _will Abandon Ship!_
Over a quarter of the video was an ad in addition to the existing ads already on the video, the video description is entirely an ad with no mention of the topic unless you expand it, and the pinned comment is an ad.
A bit much.
Taking that Russian money, huh. Are you sure that's a good plan?
How does this not get titanic coverage?
@@737Garrus you know that international law states that a captain can execute one for mutiny on the high seas, right?
The train dispatcher of the Halifax train station, when he heard news of the burning ammunition ship, directed all inbound trains to stop in their tracks immediately, and back away if possible, signing his message off by saying he is not going to make it out alive.
o7
_L_ 0
(no this isn't a greeting)
Patrick Vincent Coleman. The brave soul who stayed, so the new arrivals would not meet their doom.
V.... Coleman.... Goodbye....
"Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys." - Patrick "Vince" Coleman's last message.
My favorite anecdote from the Halifax blast is how one of the Mont Blanc sailors saved a Micmac mother and child. As the crew was heading for safety on the far side of a ridge, there was a woman sitting on her porch with her baby who would be directly hit by the blast. The language barrier prevented the sailor from explaining the unfolding disaster, so, time being of the essence, the sailor grabbed the child and ran. The confused mother ran after the sailor and both were saved.
Good story, hadn't heard that one 👍
For a perspective, I've read the Halifax explosion was "equivalent of more than 3,000 tons of TNT, nearly four times higher than the Beirut explosion estimate", and the Beirut one looked absolutely devastating
I had read for years that it was 4,000 tons! One-Fifth the power of the Hiroshima atom bomb! BTW there ARE photographs of the mushroom cloud--one taken about 16 seconds after the explosion from a Norwegian ship waiting to enter the harbor. They saw the exploding cloud but the sound hadn't reached them yet! Lots of books WON'T reproduce this picture instead used a sketchy newspaper drawing.
And the Beirut explosion modern and stone buildings miles away. If Halifax was four times stronger than that, it's a miracle there weren't more lost.
@@CortexNewsService I think part of why could be that we (on the Halifax side at least) have citadel hill that causes most of downtown to be very steep. And also it emptied the harbour which took a lot of energy
@@sapdude44 which would mean there was no where for all that force to go. Oy. Sounds like every thing that could make it worse was there.
@@CortexNewsService It destroyed whole city, it cant get more devastating than that so no miracle at all.
Vince Coleman was an On Duty Train Despatcher for the Canadian Goverment Railways. On finding out a explosition would occur, he remained at his post rather than escaping and chose to warn those along the line that the incoming passenger train would be in harms way.
This was his final message : "Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys."
R.I.P Vince Coleman, heroic railwayman who should be better remembered for his sacrifice on that fateful day.
There are some really brave railway workers out there.
At the terrible train collision at Gare de Lyon in Paris in 1988, the driver of the stationary train at the station waiting to depart, saw the incoming train come barrelling at him, on the wrong (occupied) track and clearly much too fast to stop. Instead of jumping out and running for it, which would have saved his life, he stayed in his cab and kept yelling warnings over the loudspeaker, telling ppl to immidiately evacuate the train and run off the platform. He saved many ppl that day, and he kept warning, looking right at the incoming train, until the moment it slammed into his cab and instantly killed him.
In such horrible cases, the true heroes shine, but unfortunately they almost always pay with their lives. One can only hope, that all the ppl, who lived due to their heroic sacrifice, will live good lives in tribute to the gift, they were given.
He had his own Canadian Heritage Minute
@@dfuher968 The sheer amount of energy involved in transport by train often makes them prone to moments where heroism happens...
There's was a fellow, named Jesus Garcia Corona, who's often called "The Casey Jones of Mexico," but I find that fundamentally _wrong;_ if anything, Casey Jones should be called "The Jesus Garcia of Mississippi," for two reasons:
Firstly, Jesus Garcia's heroism happened _before_ Casey Jones;'
Second, and probably more importantly, Casey Jones saved the lives of a passenger train full of people at the cost of his life alone, and yes, that is _absolutely_ heroic and he should be lauded for it. Jesus Garcia saved the lives of _an entire mining town_ of people by taking a burning train full of explosives out of a rail depot in a mining town (that would be _full of explosives)_ and backing it up the line far enough that the explosion only killed himself. There's a _reason_ he's now formally known as Jesus Garcia Corona de Nacozari.
There's also Benjamin Gimbert (who _actually_ survived, though with no expectation of doing so) and James Nightall (who, honestly, probably didn't need to die; there was no reason for Nightall to re-board the locomotive after uncoupling the burning wagon), who pulled a wagon full of burning explosives out of a station, leaving _the rest of their train of explosives_ behind them, losing their own lives (and admittedly killing the poor SOB in the signalman's box) but preventing _the entire train of explosives_ from leveling _a town;_ that's called the Soham Rail Disaster.
Lots of heroism on the rails, much of it self-sacrificing in nature.
@@wolfecanada6726 A very brave man who should not be forgotten. I miss those Heritage Minutes. Many are here on UA-cam.
@@wolfecanada6726 that is good to hear.
As a Canadian, I'm fairly familiar with this explosion. However, I think you're the first person I've come across that explained WHY the SS IMO was on the wrong side of the channel.
Well There's Your Problem did a whole podcast about it.
Even with the why. The crew still refused to make any corrective actions.
What?? They pass like Europe does. Left side of the road driving so they drive left and pass on right. The Mont Blanc was the one on the wrong side of the channel. They should have be left with he shore line on their left side. They don’t drive like America…. Drive on right pass on left. You got your brain installed backwards.
@@6th_Army And when they finally *did* take a corrective action, it was exactly the wrong one and actually expedited the crash.
Fascinating Horror did cover the Imo having to dodge two other boats.
Used to live there for years. It hits differently to hear this great retelling of the story, knowing the place. Of interesting note, Boston sent relief by train almost immediately. In 1918, Halifax sent a Christmas tree to express their thanks. The tradition was resumed in 1971 and continues to this day. 🎄
My uncle sent one in the late 90's. It was a pretty big thing to be selected to have your tree sent.
@@eisenerballer that's really cool! Best tree of the year for your uncle 👍 he just have some nice forested land
@@arthanor9631 he had a big ass tree in his way is what he had.
Wanted to build a garage. Tree had to go one way or the other. It was just fortunate that they selected it to be sent. It was going to be cut anyway
@@eisenerballer Thats hilarious! Very convenient then, to get both the honor and the garage. Makes me wonder now if they consider the future fate of a tree before selecting it. Better to cut one like your uncle's than one that could stay healthy for years to come.
I saw the Christmas tree heading to Boston a few years back. It's a cool experience to just be driving along the highway and suddenly see a massive tree going the other way
The SS Imo increased her speed above the harbor limit. The SS Clara was on the wrong side of the passage. The Stella Maris should have been farther starboard as well. The Mont Blanc was the only ship following correct procedure. Yet the Captain of the Mont Blanc was the first to be blamed.
When the atomic bombs where dropped the newspapers reported that the blast was equal to 14 Halifax explosions.
Supposedly the scientists at Los Alamos placed bets ahead of the Trinity test on how many "Halifaxes" the blast would be, i.e. using "Halifax" as a unit of measure for size of explosion.
@@doomfork Some things never change.
My dad was in his cradle about two miles from the epicentre. That AM my grandmother had noticed that the rising sun was in his eyes, so she closed the leather hood. When the blast came my aunt was blown down the stairs and all the windows blew out. My aunt was fine, so she ran upstairs to find that the leather hood on dad's cradle had been pierced by dagger like shards of glass. He was fine. Dad lived to be 97 and when he died, he was one of only a handful of survivors still alive.
Now go read about the 1945 Bedford magazine explosion, when it almost happened AGAIN! Dad survived that one too out in a lake in a boat as debris rained down all around him.
God did NOT want your dad to live.
The other really unfortunate thing about this explosion was, it was in December in Canada. There was a nasty snowstorm that hit Halifax the next day, and the residents no longer had a roof over their heads.
Just an awful situation all around. But one worth remembering.
The citizens must have felt like God had abandoned them at their lowest point.
Based on your explanation, I'm surprised that the Imo wasn't found to have the larger portion of the blame... Why does it seem like their mistakes not receive much scrutiny compared to the Mont Blanc who seemed to have been put in an impossible position by factors outside their own control?
You could argue that, but at the same time, you could also say the Mont Blanc could have tried to turn into the channel, versus towards the shore, clearing the Imo, or you could argue they could have beached. It was an interesting situation to be put in, and you can't really cast all the blame on one person
"Dangerous Driving" in terms of road speak. They were too fast, and they were on the wrong course. Definitely the worse mistakes. Just to stretch the analogy further: You put blame on the car that drives over the speed limit and on the wrong side of the highway, instead of the car that got hit by them after it "failed" to evade the reckless drivers by trying to go off-road or whatever.
@@EarlTheWhiteNinja yes the Mont Blanc could have reacted better to the course of the Imo, but that ignores the fact that the Imo was the one who put the Mont Blanc into the rough position it was in. The Imo was going too fast, and was in the wrong place, and putting blame on the people who were actually following procedure, and just got caught in a bad situation seems unfair.
@@N1ghthavvk the video itself stated, mont blanc was carrying extremely dangerous cargo -- the captain knew he needed to avoid a collision AT ALL COSTS... which resulted in the fateful decision to turn back into the channel after taking the bad turn towards the eastern bank. if you're driving a tanker trailer on a highway and an imminent collision is on course, you should pull off the road, even if it means you might explode on your own in a ditch... that's the common sense to save lives.
ultimately, like every disaster that is retold on the channel, it's a compounding of multiple errors that led to the tragedy. i wonder if this one led to some permanent changes in safety standards, even in wartime, for dangerous cargo in harbour. at the very least, i would expect most captains to know the dire consequences better and not repeat the same awful course corrections.
it still boggles my mind that such collisions never involved direct radio communications, which should be available to both ships in that era (and indeed, ALL ships by now).
The imo was just trying to avoid collisions as well. Admittedly, there was some very stupid decisions when it came to things like safe speeds for that harbor, but realistically there's likely not much that could have been done to avoid it by the time the two ships met.
Something to keep in mind is that these ships take a while to commence an adjustment in heading, so essentially each ship was trying to adjust to the other ship's previous adjustment. The Mont Blanc didn't want to beach themselves, for obvious reasons, so they tried to claim the right of way. The Imo couldn't yield the right of way due to it's lack of maneuverability at those speeds, so it signalled accordingly. The Mont then tried to cross on the other side, and the Imo tried to decelerate. Both ships were trying to get out of each other's ways, but their attempts to evade each other ended up causing the collision.
I live near Halifax now, and if your from Canada you usually know about it. It's probably the defining moment in the history of this city. Thanks for covering it.
Probably? I'd say aside from the day the city was founded nothing more defining has happened.
Basically every single building was destroyed.
It is about as defining as the great city fires.
@Caellum O'Cinneide I wanted to leave some room for doubt :), but it is to me anyway. Thanks for replying.
It's worth remembering the Mont Blanc was a French ship with a French speaking crew they tried to warn bystanders when they got to shore, but lacked the words to do so. Some are said to have picked up children and run away from the ship to try to get people to follow them, though I can't confirm this.
Last I checked, many Canadians speak French.
@@BA-gn3qb not in Halifax. Source: I'm from here. This is true.
@@BA-gn3qb In quebec, yeah
@@BA-gn3qb if any did it would be a diffrent french, Acadian french which is spoken in the maritimes( and Halifax and nova scotia as a whole is mostly english) Acadian french is so diffrent from the french spoken in france that they may as well have been speaking Japanese
@@acadiant2756 not true at all, Acadien french is pretty difficult for most other french speakers, but nowhere near different enough to be incomprehensible. It's closer to a Londoner or Australian trying to understand a thick Scots brogue, takes a bit of getting used to
I live in Canada and the main reason I know of this is because every year as part of our French class we had to choose a topic to do a speech on(increasing in length each year), and every single year this one guy chose this as a topic. Each year he would add a few extra sentences that would pad out the time to meet the new minimum length.
By the final one, the speech had been blown quite out of proportion!
Ironically, because he put in the minimum effort, his speech ended up being far more memorable for it .
@@mangofoxx Perhaps not. The person had already done this multiple times and isn't a stranger to the content. Maybe a slackard for padding it, but certantly better than that one guy who had never heard about manatees and tries to do a 20 minute presentation on them!
Not so fun fact:
The SS Imo was formerly called the SS Runic, which once belonged to the White Star Line, the same company which operated the SS Atlantic and RMS Titanic. Atlantic and Titanic both sank near to Halifax and had a substantial amount of their victims' bodies buried there. Coincidentally, White Star Lines biggest rival, Cunard Line, was founded in Halifax.
White Star Line always had a part to play in their rival's hometown's worst 3 maritime disasters.
I feel a conspiracy theory here
@@Jackryan1213expensive too
@notexpatjoe5687 I just thought it was a funny coincidence that White Star Line had some involvement in these incidents, even if Imo hadn't been Runic for 22 years.
@@notexpatjoe this is why it's clever, no one would suspect ice bergs to be employed by them.
Days when SS Runic bore no connotations beyond a normal White Star Line steamship...😅
I grew up in Massachusetts so every year we would hear about this story around Christmas time. Boston sent a lot of aid to Halifax after the disaster and every year Halifax supplies Boston with its Christmas tree as thanks.
This is the first time I've heard the Imo had already passed two ships on the "wrong" side and didn't have the capacity to turn back. I've always wondered why the didn't want to yield, but this puts things in a totally different perspective for me.
Mont Blanc was carrying a yellow signal indicating explosives. The Imo should have beached herself to her port side.
Same here
One of the other videos on this said he had a temper. He had to have his ship fixed once. When it was time to pay, he took issue with the nationality of the person that owned the shipyard an refued to pay. I think he also attacked the guy. The cops had to hunt him down, impound his ship an make him pay. This event he was being pushed down the priority list making him late. Getting loaded for coal to late to leave that night probably had him mad all night. Already mad an in a hurry enoght to leave first thing in the moring and speed, then forced to move for two other ships. He was probably cussing pretty bad when he found himself nose to nose with a third ship. I think him being pissed off was the issue. The horn exchange and then the other ship thinking he had time to cut across after, sounds like they were pretty far apart when the original refusal was made.
It's one of those things where you have to go to Halifax to really understand how big this explosion was. I remember being there and getting further and further away from the water thinking surely I would have been safe at this distance, but no, I would have most likely died. The Maritime Museum has exhibits on the explosion and one of the largest collections of artifacts from the Titanic since recovered bodies were buried in the city.
The Motherhouse for the Sisters of Charity of Halifax was on the reverse slope of one of the hills. My 8th grade teacher in 1965 told stories of her and other sisters (she was a novice at the time) going through the city after the blast and fire looking for people to help and bodies to recover. It was her 16th birthday. What a way to remember your 16th birthday.
"Not well known"? I guess, if you aren't Canadian...
My great-grandmother was quite a ways from the harbour, washing my infant great-uncle in a bassinet near the kitchen door that day, but of course facing the front window wondering what was going on. When the ship exploded, she lost an eye to a shard of the shattered front window. But my great-uncle was unscathed, as the explosion tore the front door off its hinges... landing directly across the bassinet, effectively forming a shield for him. Luckily for my existence, her husband was working on the railroad away from home that day!
Fire and Flame by The Longest Johns tells the story of the Mont Blanc in the style of a sea shanty, it’s very well done.
Indeed, can't recommend this song enough! Especially the verse about Vince Coleman:
One man, Patrick Coleman, in the railway's employ
sent word: 'Stop the trains or they'll all be destroyed
This will be my last message, farewell to you, boys.'
For a true hero's death he had earned
I have the album cures what ails ya on vinyl and it sounds great
This song is how I know about the explosion! It's an amazing song.
I can't believe you are so far below, I literally came here to see the historical explanation of the shanty
Cures What Ails Ya is a flawless album. Every song is great.
Coincidentally, I was telling my friend from Australia about the Halifax explosion last night. I first learned about it from a Canadian Heritage Minute as a little kid - a series of short history lessons that used to play on TV during commercial breaks. That one focused on the perspective of Vince Coleman, the train dispatcher who stayed behind to telegraph incoming trains, warning them to stop, and thus died in the blast.
Nobody had explained the Imo's navigation to me before this though. Thank you.
“We’re about to cause the biggest non-nuclear explosion!”
“What’s a ‘nuclear’?”
“No idea! But we’re gonna almost be close to it!!!”
They surely knew about radioactivity and fission by then, but not how big it can get.
@@filipinordabest Wasn't until '38 they discovered fission. At the time I think the most they had was the fact Marie Curie was doing some research into "a theory called radioactivity"
But I could be totally wrong on that one
The maritime equivalent of "I'm a great driver, and I can safely go faster than the speed limit. The authorities just want to control me."
You mean the Maritime equivalent of Jeremy Clarkson thinking that speed and power is the answer to everything
E
Also the marine equivalent of "Cemeteries are filled with people that had the right of way."
Speed limits shouldn't exist. They are literally pointless and arbritary. Their only purpose is for the state to leech more money off of us. Bad drivers are more of a danger than some meaningless arbritary limit on speed.
@@AverageAlienbad drivers are the one who tend to break the speed limit anyway, if you are going 40 in a narrow road near a school, where the speed limit is like 10 then that's call being reckless.
Speed limits are fine, we do need to mandate a certain maximum speed for certain roads, otherwise plenty of people will drive way too fast at the risk of others.
Every year, for the past 51 years, The City of Halifax sends a Christmas tree south to Boston in continual thanks for Beantown's prompt medical and relief aid following the explosion.
Born and raised in Halifax I take the time every year to remember those that lost their lives and the many others that suffered life long disabilities in this tragic event.
I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to cope with this at a time when they did not have the luxuries and resources we have today.
0:15 Is that Boeing 787 Bomber?
In the Marine Museum downtown they have a large exhibit dedicated to the explosion. Seeing solid iron over a foot thick twisted and warped like soft clay sent a chill down my spine.
Hello from a Nova Scotia native and current resident of a Halifax suburb. I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to make this video. I always enjoy your work, but this one hits especially close to home. Its surprising how 'unknown' this story is, especially in the younger generation, even in Canada.
One of our cross-harbour ferries is named after the railroad telegraph operator who sacrificed his life to try to save the lives onboard an inbound passenger train, and one of the new Royal Canadian Navy tugs under construction is going to be named Stella Maris. The CSS Acadia (the prefix CSS meaning Canadian Survey Ship, a name she earned after WWII when she returned to service with Canadian Hydrographic), her pier-mate HMCS Sackville (the last remaining Flower Class Corvette) and the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic are exceptional museums if you're ever in the area.
Crazy how this story is not told more often in transportation safety. An incident of this magnitude reminds me of the explosion in Lebanon a few years back.
My Grandmother lived near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island approximately 180 kilometres (111 miles) from Halifax when this happened. She would have been around 11 or 12 years old at the time and she remembered feeling the ground shaking when the explosion happened. The earthquake caused by the explosion also broke windows in Truro, Nova Scotia approximately 80 kilometres (49 miles) away.
My great grand mother lived in halifax at the time of the explosion, and she was engaged to one of the fire fighters who responded that morning. He didn't make it, and she eventually married my great grandfather.
It's always neat to imagine how big the explosion was when you're going over the Mackay bridge. Nice to see some hometown history on this channel! :)
One of my moms friends' grandmother was late for school the day of the explosion. She was far enough away that she was fine, but she kept going and when she got to the school her whole class was dead. I don't remember all the details of the story but its awful to think about. And I still remember the heritage minute they played all the time
Thanks for covering this! I have always been moved by this tragedy. Interesting fact, the Acadia is actually the CSS Acadia (Canadian Survey Ship) and was the first ship built to survey the Canadian North. She was commissioned by the RCN for both world wars and is the only surviving ship to have served in both.
Awesome information, Bailey! Have a great day!
@@RealBradMiller It's also the only ship still around that survived the halifax explosion!
Last time I was down at the pier they were doing some repair work on the main deck it looked like, definitely a cool floating museum
@@Omgazombie2k I was there this summer, the main deck is open, just not the top or below decks
one of the reasons why the explosion was so powerful was because when it blew up, the force that would normally be lost travelling down to the sea floor was reflected back by the bowl nature of the harbour, this was actually studied afterwards and is why the Atomic bomb was set as an airbust in 1945; to increase its power.
Also the Mont Blanc's captain was initially seen at fault because the entire Mont Blanc crew survived because they abandoned the ship so early rather than trying to fight the fire. Most of the population saw this not only as cowardly but also negligence, as even though they probably could have done very little to stop the blaze they lived while 1600 people did not even though it was THEIR ship. Not a good look no matter the circumstances.
The toluene onboard was used in F1 cars back in the 80s where was no restriction on the type of fuel. Cars made 1400 HP on it. It was banned eventually. Also was used as rocket fuel.
Toluene was never used as rocket fuel. It was and still is used in high octane racing fuel because it's resistant to predetonation, allowing higher compression / boost.
@@tomkandy Toluene was used briefly as a rocket fuel in the 1930’s. But it lost out to other fuels that were better performance and better properties so it is not used anymore.- Reddit
Toluene isn't more flammable or energetic than gasoline. It is pure chemical product, so its more consistent but for the relevant properties here, it's equivalent to gasoline.
@@usingthecharlim When you look up the fuel data there is not much difference, but Toluene burns much faster than petrol or diesel. That's why car are much faster using it. Just like the Top Fuel cars on methanol and nitromethane.
Wow. The quality of these videos just keeps getting better... you really have a way to tell a story. Such a huge disaster that I'm surprised I hadn't heard more about it.
Also, congratulations on the WoWs sponsorship, I always thought it would fit your channel nicely
When I was a college boy, there was a professor from Halifax, Canada and he told us that explosion briefly. It was such a terrible story to hear… 😢
I was born and lived in Nova Scotia for most of my life, about 3 hours away from Halifax. Not during the explosion, obviously, but it's history is everywhere in Nova Scotia, especially in museums and information centers.
My grandmother was living in Halifax with her husband at the time. I can't remember what he did for work but it was something that had him working around the wharf. When the explosion happened she had no way of knowing if her husband was ok and wasn't allowed to go down to the wharf, plus she had children to tend to. After hours and hours, her husband finally showed up, I can only imagine the relief she felt when he walked through the door.
There is a great song by The Longest Johns about this tragedy called fire & flame and it goes like this:
Let me sing you a song, boys, of fire and flame
Of a French ammo ship, the Mont-Blanc was her name
How the brave Nova Scotia was never the same
On the morning when Halifax burned
'Twas in early December 1917
She was packed to the gills with Grade A T-N-T
They were bound for the fighting in High Germany
When towards them the other ship turned
The Norweigan ship Imo, some fault in her gears
She struck Mont-Blanc's side like the mightiest of spears
And the benzol ignited the captain's worst fears
As the fire consumed bow to stern
The people gazed on from their safe distant rooms
Watched the soot and the smoke fill the sky with their plumes
But within, the ships cargo would spell all their dooms
How were they to know to be concerned?
The crew rowed for shore, lest they burn or they drown
They cried, "Save your souls!" as they ran through the town
But their warnings were nothing but strange foreign sounds
For the townsfolk, no French had they learned
One man, Patrick Coleman, in the railway's employ
Sent word, "Stop the trains or they'll all be destroyed
This will be my last message, farewell to you, boys"
For a true hero's death he had earned
An explosion, colossal, when the munitions blew
Devastation and debris for miles fired through
The Mont-Blanc was gone, and the town with it, too
And the waters raged up in return
There were heroes and angels all fated to die
Over two thousand souls laid to rest by-and-by
We will always remember and lift a glass high
To the morning when Halifax burned
I'm glad someone else knows the song, I came scrolling much further than I expected to looking for this
I live in Prince Edward Island, about 250 kilometers from Halifax (it's about a five-hour trip including the ferry off the Island) and was working outside an abandoned home up the road this week. The landowner took me over and showed me one of the windows, which had been cracked in the Explosion. There were windows blown out all across the Maritimes from the shockwave.
During peace time, ships carrying explosives are required to fly a precise type of flag to warn others. The Mont Blanc being a French ship in 1917, it didn't fly the required flag so as not to paint a crosshair inviting German U-Boots to sink it.
French or not, no munitions ship was going to fly the red flag with the threat of u-boats about.
@@stephenp448 Good point. However, a ship from a neutral country, could be, I don't know.
@@patanouketgersiflet9486 Germany by 1917 had already sunk quite a number of neutral ships supplying Britain and France with food and weapons.
A huge factor in eventually provoking the USA to join.
Then, the day after the explosion, Halifax was cut off from basically the rest of the world by a blizzard that stopped trains and road traffic. 16 inches (41cm) of snow kept more supplies from coming in for multiple days, and those without shelter were now even more exposed. The snow did help put out some of the lingering fires, so that's a plus, overall a massive disaster largely unknown outside Canada. In the Seattle area we were never taught about it in school directly, but I did learn about it as a tangential piece to a paper I had to write on the impact of submarines in WWI.
Mach wave (also called Mach front, Mach effect, Mach reflection, Mach stem or Mach stem effect), named after Ernst Mach, is the name given to the pressure wave resulting from a bomb exploding above the ground, which is formed by the pressure wave and its reflection on the ground.The air within this pressure wave reaches velocities of several 100 km/s and therefore has enormous destructive power. This effect was deliberately brought about for the first time - under operational conditions - when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb exploded at an altitude of about 580 meters. Already on December 6, 1917, this effect was used in the non-nuclear Halifax explosion, when the ship Mont Blanc, lying in the water, exploded and the shock wave was reflected by the water.
I live a couple kilometers from where it happened, we still send a giant Christmas tree to Boston every year as a thank you for their massive support over one hundred years ago
This is the first time I've ever seen an explanation of why the Imo was on the wrong side.
SAME! I've heard this story my whole life and this is the first time anyone ever talked about how they ended up in that position in the first place, other than 'being in a hurry'.
@@fearsomefawkes6724 yeah it really puts it in context. They were practically forced to the wrong side, they had no choice
The folk song “Fire and Flame” about this is really good.
Part of the tragedy of stories like this is all of the "if onlys." If only this or that or some other thing had happened just a little bit differently ...
Most man-made disasters tend to happen this way. They're almost always a perfect storm in which a half-dozen unlikely circumstances all occur simultaneously. We tend to make the mistake of thinking that one or two minor oversights aren't a big deal, that a little leniency with safety precautions won't cause a disaster.
Individually, none of the mistakes seem particularly hazardous. Collectively, they can have tremendous consequences.
It's almost like getting a royal flush in poker. . . The odds are extremely unlikely, but never zero.
The largest contributions to Halifax's recovery after the blast came from Boston, MA. Every winter holiday season thereafter, the people of Halifax delivered a giant Christmas tree to the Faneuil Hall Market Square as thanks. So far, the tradition remains unbroken.
It was broken for a long time before being restarted in 1971
When the news reached Boston, the Chief Medical Officer there immediately began loading Doctors and nurses onto a Train.
he then sent a Telegram to Halifax after the train left stating something along the lines of apologizing for not openly telling them ahead of time and just sending the train
Which is just good emergency response. Help first, niceties later.
Halifax sent them a Christmas tree as a thank you (Nova Scotia has long had excellent trees, used to be where the Royal Navy sourced their masts from). They restarted the tradition it 1971 and do it every year now.
@@ThisGM Oh Im well aware We send them christmas Trees.
I grew up in Halifax :)
Thank you you are the first you helped me visualize the extent of the damages inflicted to poor Haligonians and the anchor of the Mont Blanc blasted 20 km south of Halifax !!! Wow!
two and a half miles, not 20 km! But still, it's a huge distance for an anchor to fly.
@@arthanor9631 Oh my gosh thank you I was so impressed I saw double. My apologies.
@@belamourethe anchor is actually still on display in the north west arm where edmunds estate used to be
I know all about this and actually searched specifically to see if you did a video about it.
But I've live in NS my whole life, growing up in Cape Breton and actually live in Dartmouth now so I learned it all in school.
Stoked you did a video about it all!
❤️
Let me sing you a story of fire and flame
Of a French Ammo Ship the Mont Blanc was her name
How the brave Novia Scotia was never the same
On the morning when Halifax burned
It was late in December 1917
She was packed to the gills with grade A TNT
They were bound for the fighting in high Germany
When towards her the other ship turned
The Norwegian ship Imo, some fault in her gears
Struck the Mont Blanc like the mightiest of spears
And the Benzol ignited, the Captain's worst fears
As the fire consumed bow to stern
The people gazed on from their safe distant rooms|
Watched the soot and the smoke fill the sky with their plumes
But within the ship's cargo would spell all their doom
How were they to know to be concerned?
The crew rowed for shore lest they burn or they drown
They cried "Save your souls!" as they ran through the town
But their warnings were nothing but strange foreign sounds
For the townsfolk no French had they learned
One man Patrick Coleman in the railroad's employ
Sent word "Stop the trains or they'll all be destroyed.
This will be my last message, farewell to you boys."
For a true hero's death he had earned
An explosion colossal when the munitions blew
Devastation and debris for miles fired through
The Mont Blanc was gone and the town with it too
And the waters raged up in return
There were heros and angels all fated to die
Over 2000 souls laid to rest by and by.
We will always remember and lift a glass high
To the morning when Halifax burned.
That's why now, whenever Shaggy's "Mr. Boombastic" is played in Halifax, there's a moment of silence that's observed afterwards
fun fact: the Province of Nova Scotia has hand picked and gifted the City of Boston their official Christmas tree each year since 1971, in commemoration of Boston’s assistance during the aftermath of the explosion.
An interesting related story is the SS Richard Montgomery that sunk after running aground in the UK during WWII. It sits 50ft under water still loaded with 1400 Tons of various bombs. No explosion yet.
The 1100lbs shaft of the Mont Blanc anchor landed 2.35 miles away.
To make everything worse, the very next day, Halifax was hit by a 100 year blizzard and the relief trains from Boston got stuck in the snow
I am from Halifax. I'm sure many tourists walking through downtown wonder why the north facing city hall clock is wrong. It is stopped at the time of the explosion.
I remember learning about this after the Beirut explosion. What a disaster
There used to be a commercial series called Heritage Moments that was on Canadian TV and the one for this hits hard.
What's 60 feet in civilised units of measurement?
≈ 18.3 m
60 feet.
18m - or, with an explosion of this size, would basically be about as high as the depth of the harbour was, pushing all water away making the seabed visible for a short moment. its pretty crazy.
The really civilised fully understand feet AND metres
60 feet is 7.5 CCC tall (Civilized Christian Crosses).
"What's 60 feet in civilised units of measurement?"
I've heard this story in detail a hundred times, but I've never SEEN it. Wonderful vid!
0:30 Oh you obviously aren't aware of your audience, which has subscribe to every explainer/history-channel there is.
The Longest Johns have a song about this called Fire And Flame. Also, a little surprised Drachinifel hasn’t covered this topic yet… or at least as far as I know. Might be buried somewhere in his thousand’s of videos.
He's answered a few drydock questions about it, but no special on it yet. He says he intends to at some point.
@@theawickward2255 danke. Didn’t know if he had done a video about it yet or not.
Love your content, I am always impressed with what you create
I randomly stumbled across your channel yesterday and I love it, thanks man.
poor tugboat
During your WoW ad, there's a bit where it says "Enemy Cruiser Sunk!" In my head, I had the image of USS Johnston coming out of the explosions. :D
I knew about the Halifax explosion, but I had no idea that submarine nets were a thing. Thank you very much for having me learn about this amazing technology. Cheers!
I really appreciate the sailing explanation of what happened here. Sixty Symbols have a good video about the chemistry of the Mont Blanc's cargo. ua-cam.com/video/u5uTAt_A8BY/v-deo.html
Simply staggering at so many levels.
I see you changed all your video titles/thumbnails to be more clickbaity. I can see why you did it, but I miss the old ones. They were so much more calm.
Perfect illustration of what happen… I grew up in Halifax and heard the story many times from my father and the few survivors when I was a kid…. I got chills just listening to this… thanks for sharing.
Here is a short historical re-enactment that compliments your video perfectly: A Canadian Heritage Minute ua-cam.com/video/rw-FbwmzPKo/v-deo.html
You guessed wrong if you think that we haven't heard of it. You underestimated our love of history.
Shuddap
For any of my follow Canadians from the 90s, we've all seen this ua-cam.com/video/rw-FbwmzPKo/v-deo.html
I heard a short version of this story a weirdly high number of times as a kid. Very cool to have some of the blank spaces filled in.
My time is too precious to play war games, but thank you for the informative video.
Hmcs Acadia was closed to the public last time I was down to the waterfront a month ago. I think they were doing some conservation work on it. Well worth taking the tour if you ever get the opportunity
Hiya, Halifaxian here. We have sizeable portion of a museum dedicated to this event, good to hear it retold
Thank you for documenting this old incident. In the end, it was a consequence of changed attitudes because of wartime...
How the blame wasn't placed solely on the IMO is so bizarre. Its known that they blasted their horn twice, signaling refusal to yield the right of way WHEN THEY WERE ON THE WRONG SIDE.
That would be like a drunk driver driving on the wrong side of a highway and slamming into a military cargo truck and both drivers being blamed.
I think the reason may have been related to the old saying "dead men tell no tales".
I mean, people wanted someone to be held accountable, but how does one hold a person (or persons) accountable when they are dead and therefore not able to defend themselves?
We also have a bad habit of trying to blame victims.
@emerybonner7973 hitler can't defend himself, doesn't stop us from judging him. Rightfully so.
Its probably due to all the anti french sentiment in the region and it being an all French crew. Still insane how people at the time knew they IMO refused to yield and yet still blamed the military ship.
@brettfluhr9973 true.
When we were there a few years ago we stood by the canon that was thrown miles from the explosion. It is mind blowing to look way off to the distance and think that it came all that way.
The maritime museum alone is worth a trip to Halifax.
Cheers !
I saw several videos on the Halifax explosion, yours is the best.
If they found the anchor and gun miles from the ship it’s easy to conclude it doesn’t exist anymore..
I first learned of this story, from a book I read, when I was six. It stuck with me, since I was young and 🥺, till this day. I remember talking about it, to my Dad. He told me, a kinda realistic version of it, which in turn scared, the crap outta me😱!!! That was 1968, and I still will watch ANY documentary, I come across.
Good Video! Just a few additions to your information. In French, an "I" is pronounced like an "E" in English, so the ship's name is pronounced like EMO. The submarine net extended from McNabb's Island to the Halifax side of the shore of the harbour mouth. When the Mont Blanc arrived at the mouth of Halifax Harbour too late to be admitted, her Captain was so concerned that he had the red hazardous cargo flag taken down. He was nervous that flying the red flag would make the Mont Blanc more of a target while at anchor outside the harbour that night. The Captain was in such a hurry to get inside the safety of the harbour the next morning, that he did not remember to raise the red warning flag. This would have given some warning to other ships that the Mont Blanc was a floating bomb. Your explanation of the reason that the Imo was out of position in the Narrows was the best I have ever seen. Good work.
Ever walk down a hall and someone is going in the opposite direction and you both step in the same direction to avoid each other and it produces this awkward dance?
Basically that, with ships and tons of explosives.
I heard Olympic was there days before the explosion
the legendary Ocean liner
luckily she managed to get away and be safe before the explosion
The first of her class was quite the survivor
@@TukaihaHithlec Yeah, legendary
Boom! The ship exploded! 😮
Interesting sidenote: The _Imo_ was initially launched as the SS _Runic_ of the White Star Line.
The RMS Olympic sailed from Halifax just a couple days before carrying 6000+ troops to the war in Europe. If she'd been delayed by engine trouble or bad weather... Doesn't bare thinking about.
She was a tough girl. Depends heavily how close she would have been and how many were on deck.
Interesting. I knew she'd been in to Halifax (there's a lovely painting of her in dazzle camo tied up in Halifax) but I didn't know how soon before the explosion that was.
@@doomfork I believe Historic Travels (wonderful channel, you'll love it if you like this one) RMS Olympic timeline includes a bit more detail on where she was. I can't remember exactly but it really was by a day or three that she missed being wrecked and I think she was moored quite close. Anyway check out his video it's great. As well the Britannic, Lusitania and Titanic timelines. They're about 2h and very detailed so grab some beers or snacks.
ua-cam.com/video/1NlvOuA_-zI/v-deo.html
@@221b-l3tI mean Halifax as a whole was flattened with citadel hill really being the only thing standing because it’s dug right into the top of Halifax’s hill, I’m not sure it would’ve survived it tbh since the ship detonated right next to the dock yards
Though how horrifically tragic this event was, the cargo list of Mont Blanc is almost hilarious in how dangerous it was.
1600 dead, and 9000 blinded are dismal numbers. Standing right by the window when viewing a huge fire is still a problem we have today. Almost all the videos of the tragic explosion in Beirut, and Tianjin shows this. Of course, we are inquisitive beings and want a better look, but we never think about a potential explosion blowing shards of glass at us.
The snowstorm the following day and the rest of the winter is rarely mentioned, but finding a roof and warmth for a whole city is not easy.
i think the problem is no one is expecting a explosion
Here in Boston, to commemorate the Halifax Explosion, the people of Nova Scotia donate a tree for our Christmas every year for over 50 years continuously now. This was because upon the news of the disaster reaching Boston, a train filled with relief supplies was dispatched to Halifax. It took 2 days to travel because of blizzards and harsh weather, but it made it to the city on the morning of December 8th, distributing food, medical supplies, and relieving the local medical staff with fresh personnel.
There's so many side stories like the Christmas Tree , buckets full of eyeballs , Halifax's first fire truck and it's only survivor there's some great books I know who reads books anymore . I myself am from Dartmouth and played on the cannon that was launched when the ship exploded in the late 60's that is.
One of the CP passenger cars involve in this explosion still exists. Its located at Toronto Railway museum used as lounge by the staff in the round house I feel this car should be taken to pier 21in Halifax ,NS. as part of history
And not words about Vince Coleman, the Halifax train station train dispatcher, that refused to evacuate, because he knew a passenger train was coming and he sent a morse message telling them to stop, saving the lives of 300 + passengers. Coleman's Morse code message reads as follows: Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys.
My grandparents were supposed to move to a Halifax apartment but decided to move to Truro. That coin flip saved my life.
I live 5 hours away from Halifax and I was told this story by my grandmother who was told by her grandparents That when the halifax explosion happened, the explosion was so violent. Here in Cape Breton which like I said, is 5 hours away. They heard the plates and silverware and cutlery rattle in the cupboards.