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Praetorium Honoris

Monday, October 22, 2018

Halifax

Much like Sarge, last week was back to the grind week for me.  Unlike him however, I am returning from a very nice two week vacation at various ports in the Canadian Southeast and American North East.  Sarge, during this time, was practicing for Halloween where he's going trick or treating as Popeye.  Muesli indeed!

In all seriousness, he's doing much better and we had a great, albeit short, time with them.

I'm also not going to regale you with how the shortened work week went when I returned to the saddle. (But...since you asked.  Fine actually, we had a team discussion on what they did not have appropriate permission levels to handle things while I was gone.  So an appropriate dry run for something that occurs in 40 work days.)

Nope.  It's another travelogue.

Hello....Anybody still there?

One of the things I really like about traveling with my wife and our friends (aka The Pharmacists) is we plan the trip, but that plan isn't set in concrete.  We do quite a bit of wandering around. That has led us to some spectacular discoveries over the years.

And it didn't fail us this trip either.

Our primary objective on our stop in Halifax was to take a "foodie" tour of the town, which we did, but that started in the afternoon.  To occupy the morning, we decided to hike to the Maritime Museum which was about a quarter mile from where the ship was moored.

Mrs J had heard they had a Titanic exhibit there and she wanted to see that. I was kinda "Meh" on that exhibit, but ships are cool. So....

Arrived and went through the Titanic exhibit and it was solidly ONG (Ok, Not Great).  They had an actual deck chair, but the rest was mostly models, and old photos.  
Source

They had a fairly interesting section that talked about how they had documented the descriptions of the bodies recovered.  The result there was that many bodies were identified and returned to Next of Kin, years after the fact.  As a Data Guy, I thought that was kind of cool. YMMV.


But Mrs J and the Pharmacists were entranced by the exhibit, so I wandered on ahead after deciding on a rendezvous place.  

Well, it seems the museum was hosting a display discussing the Halifax Explosion.  Not knowing anything whatsoever about this, I went inside.  

There went the rest of the morning.

Well it seems that on December 6, 1917, two ships collided in a portion of the Halifax Harbor known as "The Narrows".  One was a Norwegian ship, the SS Imo, carrying grain to Belgium.  The other was a French ship, the  SS Mont-Blanc, carrying ammunition to Europe.
Explosion took place inside the blue rectangle
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Due to a series of unfortunate events, the Imo was sailing on the wrong side of the waterway and neither Captain was willing to give way until too late.  The Imo hit the Mont-Blanc gashing her hull and splitting barrels of benzole, a highly flammable fuel.  Sparks from the collision ignited that fuel starting an uncontrollable fire.


The Captain of the Mont Blanc ordered the ship abandoned and the crew rowed to the opposite shore where all, save one, survived. The Imo was not so lucky.  Only 4 survived, two were undersea divers underneath the water.
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The ship drifted up against the docks and burned for about 20 minutes.  Just enough time to allow people to come and look at it.  Unfortunately, because of security concerns to protect the ship from U-Boats, very few people knew what the cargo was.
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Finally, about 9:05 in the morning, the ship exploded.  
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The exhibit stated that the force of the explosion was ~3 Kilotons.  I've sat alert with weapons that are measured in Kilotons, 3Kt would not have been the smallest of them.

Virtually all structures within a half mile radius were destroyed and 1600 people killed instantaneously.


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A large total, which could have...should have...would have been higher except for the actions of one man.  The ship was on fire very near the train station.  
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A passenger train due to arrive during that twenty minute window.  The dispatcher Vince Coleman was one of the few who knew the cargo of the Mont Blanc and stayed at his post telegraphing messages to get that train stopped.   His last message was "Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys."
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Not only did the passenger train get stopped successfully, but that was the first indication the outside world had of the disaster.  Trains from all over were rerouted immediately to Halifax to bring supplies in and wounded out.


Mr. Coleman died at his post.


In a somewhat macabre portion of the exhibit was a box with glass eyes in it.  I stopped by to see what that was all about.  Evidently, one of the more common, if survivable, injuries incurred was blindness caused by looking at the light of the explosion.   An Ophthalmologist named George Cox removed 79 eyeballs during a 48 hour period after it.


A final factoid that I found interesting was that the Mont Blanc's 1140 lb anchor was found 2.35 miles from the site of the explosion.  Gardeners in the area still routinely find pieces of broken metal from the ships while digging in their gardens.

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All things I wouldn't have known if I hadn't wandered off from the group.


I found this computerized re-creation of the event educational.




Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSuX9RvLq54
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/12/06/two-ships-collided-in-halifax-harbor-one-of-them-was-a-3000-ton-floating-bomb/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d8f76952bab4
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/newly-discovered-diary-tells-harrowing-story-deadly-halifax-explosion-180964066/
https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/what-see-do/halifax-explosion
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/unearthed-first-hand-accounts-reveal-devastation-of-1917-halifax-explosion-1.2684931

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Coleman_(train_dispatcher) 

38 comments:

  1. Had read briefly of this explosion but was ignorant of the details given here..... brave man to stay at his post. Did not know about the eyes either....(shudder). Very interesting post Juvat

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    1. Neither did I prior to visiting the museum and learned quite a bit more in researching the post. Re: the eyes, the exhibit said that he did so many, that he ran out of scalpels and had to reuse. Now....that's a shudder.
      Thanks.

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  2. A harrowing event! RIP Mr. Coleman, you did your duty above and beyond!

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  3. Lived in Clayton Park (on your map) while on exchange to the RCN. The story is pretty compelling. One aspect was that an immense (for the time) amount of relief rolled into Halifax from the US via rail, almost immediately. Also the USN sent ships to help.

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    1. Yep, and a good portion of that immediacy was due to Mr. Coleman. I enjoyed Halifax, I bet you did also.

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  4. Just Wow!! Talk about a mass casualty incident!! 1600 killed immediately and 9000 injured...no wonder there was an influx of help from everywhere. And thank goodness for Mr. Coleman! I had never heard about this before. Thank you for sharing, and educating.

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  5. How is that story kept a secret? That is a real hero.

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    1. I'm not sure it was kept secret, rather it was forgotten. The Smithsonian Article I cited was an interesting read. A diary was found relatively recently. It was authored by a seamen who was on a ship in the harbor at the time. It's worth your time to read.

      I would say that Mr. Coleman fit the definition of Hero quite well.

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  6. I’d heard, somewhere, in my youth about Halifax, but forgot.
    Thanks for the reminder.

    There’s a definite advantage to not having specific plans for a vacation trip.
    MB and I left a lot of latitude on our recent trek.

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    1. My Pleasure.

      Santa Fe is a nice town isn't it?

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  7. 1140 lb anchor was found 2.35 miles from the site? Anchors away indeed! Far far away. Sad how the death toll was increased due to all the spectators.

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    1. Yeah...Curiosity killed way more than the cat in this instance. Hindsight being 20/20, OpSec appears to have backfired here.

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    2. Same reason I try to avoid looking at car wrecks on the freeway- don't want to exacerbate the slow down, or run into someone while being a lookey-loo.

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    3. There is just something about a disaster that makes folks stare. Probably a good deal of "Thank the Lord it isn't me" going on.

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  8. A lot of really tragic events have been forgotten, much like the great Molasses Flood of Boston in 1919. Or all the other fires in Illinois around the same time as the Chicago fire that actually burned and killed more. Sometimes our capacity to forget tragedy is a good thing.

    As to the actual explosion, one of the many horrors dreamed up by anti-terrorism people is the hijacking of a LPG/LNG (liquid Petroleum Gas/Liquid Natural Gas) mega carrier exploding in a city harbor. Think about it. Ship is supposed to stop 20-30 miles away and pump at a distant pumping facility, but keeps going. How can you stop a floating bomb the size of a supertanker, in less than 2 hours? An ulcer-creating event. Think about it. Same can be said for train cars shipping the same materials. One of the many reasons I like not living near a rail hub or a major sea port.

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    1. It’s perhaps worth pointing out that those big LNG tankers can’t actually explode. There could be leaks and fires, but a massive BLEVE-type kaboom isn’t in the cards, for a number of design and physics reasons. There are, like, papers about it and stuff:

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17137713/

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    2. Beans,
      I'm in agreement with you about living near those type facilities. An hour away is sufficient I believe. I also don't like being in large crowds, future post to detail.

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    3. a bear,
      Well....that info is going to help me sleep a bit more easily. Thanks.

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    4. Ah, a bear, sorry, just fell into the panic I remember reading about them when they first were introduced, panic formed by the MSM, of course.

      Though I have seen a rail car split and go blooie, on a model railroad forum many moons ago. Can't remember what they were carrying or the reason why it exploded, but, still, people who move to residences next to industrial yards either are stupid, poor, or not caring about the consequences.

      Always glad to be told the truth. Thanks, a bear.

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    5. I think I'd read that whole LNG scheme in a Clive Cussler book or a different author from that genre. The good guy saved the day in the end.

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  9. The Halifax explosion was used in an olde Navy training film (made by Disney) to teach about the importance of the "Nautical Rules of the Road." Although made in 1942, it was still used in the late 1960s and possibly later.
    The Halifax part is covered in the first six minutes:
    https://www.clipzui.com/video/r4z2q4r2a4z4p4x27524s4.html
    John Blackshoe

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    1. OK, Thanks John, but that is going to have to wait til I get home. (Hot Asian Girls advertisements are likely to cause a problem at work.)

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  10. Thank you for increasing my knowledge of history. A tale well told.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

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  11. From WWII---

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Chicago_disaster

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    1. I'd actually heard about that one, although not in quite that detail. Perhaps because my mother was raised in San Francisco and I was born close to there. Seems like that disaster was a "not if but when" situation.

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  12. They didn't have the video in the 90s when I was up there, but chilling is one word. Glad y'all had a good trip, and you and Sarge finally met!!

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  13. Thanks for the details - had heard about it from a friend who did some schooling in Halifax, read some about it, may have mentioned it in a comment to your previous post about your trip to Halifax (or did I just think about making such a comment? Getting old ain't for sissies, as my mom would say) but had not heard about Mr. Coleman. Definition of duty and bravery! For another story about a big boom, look up the 1947 Texas City explosion in the Houston ship channel - was not as great a loss of life as Halifax, but still killed almost 600 souls. And what is it about a disaster that makes people look? I also don't like crowds and tend to find an exit ... how'd y'all do with all the rain recently? Were you far enough south to not get the flooding like they had in Llano?

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    1. Yeah, Tom, you had made the comment and I had already decided to do a post on the subject when I read it. The exhibit piqued my interest and thankfully there was some good info online about it.

      We were ok. My DIL and Sister were stuck on our property last Tuesday due to flooding, but were fine. The low water crossing had dropped low enough that we were able to get home that evening from the trip. Stock ponds are still maxed out and more rain is forecast today and tomorrow, so....

      Fortunately, our river didn't overflow its banks so we did better than the folks North of us.

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    2. Glad all was well - and you stayed dry (at least comparatively so!)

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  14. Wow, just wow. Thanks for sharing.

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  15. I was impressed by this book.
    Blizzard of Glass The Halifax Explosion of 1917 - Sally M. Walker

    George

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    1. Another addition to my Kindle collection. Thanks for the recommendation.

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