The Halifax Explosion of 1917

The Halifax Explosion of 1917

2004

THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION OF 1917

Halifax is a deep natural ice-free harbour one of the biggest natural harbours in the world . In 1749 British General Edward Cornwallis founded the city of Halifax , Nova Scotia . It was created to act as a naval and army base to protect British from French who had settled on the northern island of Nova Scotia . In 1812 the harbour was fortified in order to protect the city . In 1906 , the Canadian government officially took over the army and naval base

in Halifax from the Great Britain

During the First World War Halifax harbour was Canada 's main base and housed the army garrison with warships , supply vessels , troop transports and munitions . In 1917 the admiralty officially introduced the convoy system to help reduce the losses from u-boats . So Halifax was very busy port where many people were involved in

On Thursday , December 6 , 1917 the Halifax harbour was crowded with many warships as well as neutral ships . One of those neutral ships was a Norwegian vessel employed in the Belgium Relief effort Imo , she was heading to New York to load relief supplies for Belgium . Approximately at 8 .00 am Imo left her mooring in Bedford Basin and headed for open sea . The same time the French ship Mont Blanc came from New York but arrived too late to be let through the anti submarine nets and had to wait until the next day for a convoy to accompany her to enter the harbour . The munitions ship was carrying a full cargo of explosives stored in the holds or simply stacked on deck : 2 ,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid , 200 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT , 10 tons of gun cotton with drums of Benzol (High Octane fuel (Munroe , The Halifax Explosion in 1917

The Mont Blanc didn 't had the regulation red flag to indicate she was carrying explosives , signaled that she was in her correct channel the Imo , however , signaled that she was intending to bear even further to port , closer to Dartmouth and further into the Mont Blanc 's channel (Halifax Explosion

As a result of traffic in the channel the Imo was forced to the wrong side of the channel , misunderstood signals between the 2 ships resulted in a collision (The Halifax Explosion . Perhaps the ships might have passed without incident , but the Imo signaled "full speed astern " So did the Mont Blanc , but it was too late . Reversing her engines caused the Imo 's bow to swing right , and it struck the Mont Blanc (Halifax Explosion . The collision took place at 8 .45 am in the narrowest part of the channel known as the Narrows

It is believed that right after the collision some of the Benzol drums broke loose , spilling on the deck and sparks generated by the collision ignited it the burning liquid then seeped into the holds (Kernaghan Halifax Explosion

The crew of the Mont Blanc , knowing what they were...