The Great Halifax Explosion

by John U. Bacon

  At 8:15 a.m., Stella Maris, a tugboat that had served as a British gunboat in the China Sea, pulled out of the dry dock on the Halifax shore at the south end of Richmond and picked up two scows loaded with ashes from the dockyard. The tugboat, the tow ropes, and the two scows together stretched out to about 320 feet, the length of a football field—an unwieldy caravan, perhaps, but not unusual for Halifax Harbour, and nothing too tricky to handle on her short trip to the basin.

  Stella Maris was in the capable hands of Captain Horatio Brannen, an experienced seaman who looked the part. At a time when cameras were still a luxury, Captain Brannen had recently sat for an expensive studio photo of himself in full uniform, to be framed and presented to his wife as a Christmas gift almost three weeks later. His son, Walter, served as his first mate, which surely made the captain proud.

  No sooner had Captain Brannen steered Stella Maris toward the Narrows on the right side, heading for the basin, than he spotted Imo. He told Second Mate William Nickerson that Imo “was going as fast as any ship he had ever saw in the harbor,” Nickerson recalled, adding that Brennan thought Imo “looked to be making eight or ten miles an hour,” or 6 to 8 knots. Nickerson saw Imo stirring up foam at her bow, a rare and unwelcome sight in the Narrows.

  Still, if Imo righted her course back toward Halifax, as Captain Brannen assumed she would, then her previous moves would be a minor annoyance, something to grumble about to the harbor pilots. But when Imo blew two blasts on her whistle, indicating she intended to continue through the Narrows on her left, in the wrong water, Brannen cursed, “The bloody fool! He’s taking her down against Dartmouth. We’ll be cross bows. Go about!”

  Given Imo’s speed, size, and position, Captain Brannen’s choices were as limited as the time he had to make them. Although he had a well-earned reputation for following the rules, he quickly calculated that he could not haul the scows behind him to the right of Imo fast enough to avoid a collision with either his tugboat or, more likely, the cables or scows that trailed behind it. Brennan pulled his ship and scows to the left, back toward the Halifax shore they’d just come from, allowing Imo to continue on her path to the middle of the Narrows. While Brannen was also breaking convention, after Imo’s signals, he had little choice—another unwitting addition to this growing list of exceptions.

  This, in turn, only reinforced Imo’s unconventional trajectory to the left. To avoid hitting Stella Maris and her scows, the Imo went closer to the Dartmouth side of the channel, moving still farther from her correct course.

  With Imo now charging across the imaginary centerline at the upper end of the Narrows, sitting atop the water and churning bubbles at her bow, Mont-Blanc began her approach into the Narrows from the opposite end and in opposite fashion: with 6 million pounds of high explosives pushing her down in the water, she gently parted a path forward, creating no foam in front and barely a wake behind.

  On Mont-Blanc, Harbour Pilot Francis Mackey stood next to Captain Le Médec on the bridge. Mackey provided directions to Le Médec while Mont-Blanc slid slowly past George’s Island, where the second submarine netting was secured each night. That meant the Mont-Blanc was now unmistakably inside Halifax Harbour. The crew looked forward to a well-earned respite in Bedford Basin.

  Le Médec and Mackey continued guiding Mont-Blanc alongside Dartmouth’s modest houses and factories. When Mont-Blanc came upon the famous HMS Highflyer, anchored in the upper harbor, she had to veer a bit to the right to be safe, bringing her still closer to the shore. After Mackey told Le Médec of the Highflyer’s exploits, the captain ordered a crewman to salute the ship by briefly lowering Mont-Blanc’s huge French flag, and Highflyer responded in kind.

  Highflyer’s officer of the watch, Lieutenant Richard Woollams, appreciated the gesture, but he couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at the fully loaded steamer with metal drums stacked on her decks, three and four barrels high, held in place by mere ropes. “Fuel oil, or perhaps petrol,” he thought. “Whatever it is, she’s damn sloppily loaded. . . . The convoy admiral won’t be very happy about that one!”

  Mont-Blanc’s plan was simple: proceed slowly to the right along the Dartmouth coast to the basin, anchor to refuel and restock, and try to catch a convoy heading to Europe, one slow enough to accommodate Mont-Blanc’s top loaded speed of 7 knots. The crew assumed the final leg would be the most dangerous and nerve-racking, especially if they had to sail unprotected for three weeks. But that was not something they had to worry about that morning.

  At 8:27 a.m., Mont-Blanc was about 400 feet from the Dartmouth shore. Then, just to be careful, she veered farther to the right until she was less than 100 feet from the shore, about as close as a ship could comfortably get without scraping the bottom—certainly one loaded with 6 million pounds of high explosives.

  Better safe than sorry.

  About this time, Captain Le Médec looked up to see Imo’s masts for the first time across the Narrows, about a mile away. Her four stacks were all Pilot Mackey needed to see to know it was Imo. He also knew the ship was being piloted by William Hayes—and not due to official communications but dumb luck: the previous afternoon, Mackey, Captain From, and Hayes had shared a tugboat while Captain From grumbled about the coal ship coming late. At that moment, Mackey put it together: the coal delay had kept them from escaping the harbor before the nets came across, causing them to leave this morning.

  During Imo’s earlier visits to Halifax, Mackey had piloted her once or twice and found her easy to handle. When he saw Imo riding high that morning, he knew she was empty, which would make her faster, but it would also harder for her to gain “traction” on the water. Adding to Mackey’s disquiet: he saw Imo’s bow plowing through the water fast enough to whip up the water in front of her. “Quite a ripple,” he said. But his greatest concern was this simple fact: Imo was heading southeast, directly toward Mont-Blanc.

  Because the morning sun was just starting to rise behind Mont-Blanc and the ship was riding so low, Captain Le Médec worried the men on Imo’s bridge might not be able to see Mont-Blanc, which made Le Médec worry they were about to be run over by a temporarily blind captain.

  Back on Imo, Captain Haakon From and Harbour Pilot William Hayes, having just avoided Stella Maris and her scows, saw Mont-Blanc for the first time. Despite the rising sun, they could see Mont-Blanc clearly. Captain From had no idea what Mont-Blanc was carrying, like almost everyone else in the harbor. His thoughts were elsewhere: he had already been delayed one day, and was eager to get to New York as fast as possible.

  Harbour Pilot Mackey, standing on the bridge of Mont-Blanc next to Captain Le Médec, was stunned to see Imo bearing down on them—and cutting through their channel, no less. He instinctively pulled the cord to give one short, sharp blast to let the oncoming ship know Mont-Blanc was on the correct side, she had the right to stay there, and she intended to. He figured the captain of the oncoming ship would see Mont-Blanc and slow down to change course back to the right side, and all would return to normal.

  But Captain From responded to Mackey’s message with two short whistles, nautical language for “No, we will pass on the left side.” Unlike Captain Renner’s request, which Renner had initiated and Captain From readily agreed to, Captain From was countering Mackey’s announcement, which Mackey and Le Médec were not about to agree to. They didn’t have to know what picric acid was to understand that they had a lot more at stake than any other ship in the harbor.

  Hearing Imo’s two whistles, Mackey directed Captain Le Médec to steer Mont-Blanc even closer to the Dartmouth shore, to the edge of danger—both from the coastline and from the perilously shallow water—and pull her back to “dead slow.” Fully loaded, Mont-Blanc sat so low in the water it risked running aground if it came too close to the Dartmouth shore, which ranged from 35 to 68 feet deep. If they managed to avoid Imo but run into the shore or aground, either could provide all the sparks or turbulence needed to set off their cargo.

  At the same time, “so as to relieve
myself of all possible doubt,” Mackey said, “I blew another signal of one blast,” which translated to: “We’re on the correct [starboard] side. You are not. Move back to the other side, or stop.”

  To Mackey’s amazement, Imo responded to his repeated request with two more short blasts, which meant: “I don’t care. I am not changing my course.”

  Mackey was incredulous. “I did not understand,” he said. “I had the right, and [Captain From] had no right to change my signal because I had given first one blast, meaning I am heading to the right, except . . . to avoid the collision.”

  Mackey had good reason to be outraged, but no time to indulge it. “Seeing [Imo] going at that rate of speed,” he said, “I knew if I kept on going he would bang me ashore.”

  Now Captain Le Médec and Mackey faced one of the toughest decisions a helmsman has to make—and fast. The two ships were, in effect, playing a game of chicken, which helps us understand both captains’ rapidly collapsing choices. You are in your car and see that an oncoming car is in your lane. What do you do? You go to the right shoulder—until you see he’s going to your shoulder, too, while leaning on his horn. In desperation, at the last possible moment, you finally decide to cut to the left. You know it’s normally the wrong move, but the situation you’re in is not normal. It should work—unless the oncoming driver does the same thing.

  With Imo now only about 150 feet away—half a boat length—from Mont-Blanc and closing fast, Captain Le Médec froze. Mackey yelled at Le Médec to steer Mont-Blanc to the port side in the hopes that both ships would pass each other on the “wrong” side. Under the circumstances, being wrong paled in comparison to being dead.

  Mackey’s shouting snapped Le Médec out of his stupor. He quickly concluded that Mackey was correct, and ordered Mont-Blanc hard to the left, away from the usual safety of the Dartmouth shore. This pulled Mont-Blanc’s bow toward the middle of the Narrows, exactly where Le Médec did not want to be, but anything was preferable to smashing into Imo, the shore, or the bottom.

  After Mont-Blanc had finally and reluctantly veered left, the two ships were briefly parallel to each other, and Mackey thought that everything might just work out. If both captains had maintained their last directions, that’s just what would have happened.

  It’s called a game of chicken, of course, because one of the two drivers, or in this case captains, is expected to lose his nerve first, turn chicken, and avoid disaster for both vehicles. This works so long as the other captain doesn’t also turn chicken and change his course. Judging by the behavior of Imo’s captain to that point—speeding down the wrong side of the harbor channel while repeatedly signaling that he had no intention of budging—Le Médec had to figure that the hard-charging captain would be the last man to lose his nerve.

  Le Médec guessed wrong.

  No sooner had Le Médec deferred to Imo and turned Mont-Blanc diagonally across the middle of the Narrows, generously giving Mont-Blanc’s channel to Imo, than Captain From also decided to end the game of chicken by issuing three blasts on his whistle, announcing his sudden decision to switch from full speed ahead to full speed astern. This precautionary maneuver had the predictable effect of pulling Imo’s stern to the left while swinging her bow to the right, toward the middle of the harbor—right into Mont-Blanc’s new pathway. For the first time all morning, Imo’s bow was heading in the right direction—but at exactly the wrong time.

  The awkward dance would have been as comical as two people trying to walk past each other on the street who repeatedly move to the same side, unwittingly increasing the odds of bumping into each other—if the stakes weren’t so incredibly high.

  On the bridge of Mont-Blanc, Mackey was apoplectic, but he quickly dismissed the idea that Imo’s harbor pilot, William Hayes, whom Mackey had worked with for years, had made that final decision. “Knowing Hayes as I do, I didn’t think it was his order,” Mackey said. “I didn’t think Hayes would do that.” Mackey was convinced the command came from Captain From, and Hayes had merely obeyed.

  Mackey and Le Médec started shouting orders to the crew almost in unison. As Imo’s bow seemed to stretch toward Mont-Blanc’s nose in slow motion, both saw only one solution: simultaneously they grabbed the whistle cord, sent out two short blasts, indicating their intention to turn even harder to the left, and yelled belowdeck to power Mont-Blanc across Imo’s bow.

  Mackey yelled at Le Médec, “There is going to be a collision!”

  Le Médec apparently agreed, bellowing to the crew below to make a last, desperate move: throw Mont-Blanc’s engines into reverse at full speed—a transverse thrust—in hopes of to back up as fast as possible to minimize the impact.

  “Full speed astern!”

  “I knew that in the No. 2 ’tween decks was the TNT,” Le Médec said, “and that was a dangerous explosive, I had heard in New York, which would explode under the least shock.” Being no chemist, Le Médec did not know that the barrels of picric acid stored in the No. 1 hold were even more powerful and volatile than the TNT, but his intent was sound: mitigate the impact, and pray that the gigantic bomb packed beneath them was not disturbed.

  On Imo, Pilot Hayes reached the same conclusion, yelling virtually the same words to Captain From: “There is going to be a collision!”

  It looked like Captain Le Médec’s attempt to avoid being struck at the point of the hold packed with TNT might work. Instead, Imo’s bow was now targeting the drums of benzol and barrels of picric acid.

  Thanks to Archie Orr’s whooping cough, the Orr children would not be joining their classmates at Richmond School that morning. They had plenty of time to play games, draw pictures, and watch the ships slide by. Just a few minutes after Barbara Orr waved good-bye to her father heading off to work, she stood at their dining room’s big bay window, idly admiring the views their new home offered of the harbor below.

  Then Barbara noticed something peculiar unfolding: one big ship coming out of the basin toward the Narrows, and a smaller one approaching the other way, from the harbor toward the basin. Even to her untrained eye, they seemed to be getting too close to each other, with the big one on the left going too fast. As she was drawn closer to the window, the two ships started acting strangely, blasting their whistles back and forth in a rare nautical argument.

  Barbara was only fourteen years old, but years later she could recall that the two ships “looked like they were deliberately trying to run into each other . . . There was no need of a collision.”

  Barbara beckoned her oldest brother, the naval aficionado, “Ian, come and see what’s going on!”

  When Ian saw what his sister saw, he was transfixed. He had never seen the harbor traffic play out like this before.

  “That’s a neutral ship,” Ian said, pointing to the Imo, with BELGIAN RELIEF on its side. “Otherwise it would have a convoy.”

  They continued coming closer.

  Barbara cried, “They are trying to run into each other!”

  Chapter 15

  “Look to Your Boats!”

  Both captains had thrown their ships into full reverse thrusts to pull their bows back, with their engines loudly straining to overcome the momentum of their last maneuvers. Their bows were still creeping forward, however slowly, with the tip of Imo lining up on the right front flank of Mont-Blanc at an almost perpendicular angle.

  The roar of the engines drowned out the shouting crewmen on both decks. Seeing that contact couldn’t be avoided, those on deck watched Imo advance the final few feet. Imo’s bow crawled toward the side of Mont-Blanc, until the awkward, dangerous dance ended in the middle of Halifax Harbour at 8:46 a.m., Thursday, December 6, 1917, when Imo’s bow struck Mont-Blanc.

  The four crewmen working on Mont-Blanc’s deck instinctively flinched, as if they were preparing to get punched in the face, but when Imo hit their ship, it did not blow up instantly, as they had expected. Because both ships had been backpedaling at full throttle, the impact was not particularly forceful. If the French freighte
r hadn’t been hauling 6 million pounds of high explosives, the entire incident would have been a minor matter for the insurance adjusters and the wreck commissioner, and quickly forgotten.

  But when the huge slab of steel that was Imo crashed into the other huge slab of steel that was Mont-Blanc at that angle, it was enough to carve a V-shaped hole in Mont-Blanc’s plating running from the waterline right up to her deck, where it spread five or six feet wide. Le Médec had succeeded in shielding the No. 2 hold, where the stevedores had stored the TNT, but in so doing he exposed the No. 1 hold, where they had packed some of the benzol and picric acid. And that’s where Imo hit Mont-Blanc.

  The jolt snapped the lashings that held the benzol in place and knocked over some of the carelessly stacked, thin-skinned barrels on top. When they tumbled to the deck, a few burst open, sending the unusually combustible fuel washing across the boards and down the gash into the cargo holds below.

  When the steel plates of the two ships became entangled, Captain From continued to pull Imo back at full speed, which tore the entwined metal apart. One Imo crewman felt no shock and heard no noise on impact, but “could feel something like a little twist.”

  That little twist was enough to generate the very sparks everyone who had worked on Mont-Blanc, from the shipwrights to the stevedores to the crewmen who didn’t even carry matches, had gone to such lengths to avoid. A fire started and spread across the foredeck with a whoosh. Within minutes, thick, black smoke poured out of the gash in the side and enveloped the deck. Whenever the flames penetrated a new drum of benzol, flames would shoot up through the smoke.

  The Orr children’s astonishment over the collision drew their mother and their six-year-old sister, Isabel, to the window. They were rapt when smoke started climbing out of a big hole in the smaller ship.

  Ian ran to get his binoculars. When he returned, he pointed to the burning Mont-Blanc and told Barbara, “That’s an ammunition boat.”