The Great Halifax Explosion

June 15, 2017

In December 1917, the French freighter Mont-Blanc left New York for war-exhausted Europe with fresh troops and an unprecedented 3,000 tons of explosives, then was struck by the relief ship Imo in Halifax Harbor, Nova Scotia. The resulting explosion, which leveled 2.5 square miles of Halifax, killed 2,000 people, and wounded 9,000 more, was the largest explosion humankind managed before the atomic bomb. From the author of three New York Times best sellers, interestingly in the area of sports.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2017
A history of the destruction of a Canadian city by an explosion as powerful as a nuclear weapon.In 1917, the thriving seaport of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was leveled by a munitions explosion of unprecedented force when two ships collided in the city's harbor. One carried 2,925 tons of high explosives; 494 steel drums of combustible airplane fuel; 250 tons of TNT, and 2,366 tons of the unstable, poisonous chemical picric acid, even more powerful than TNT. The ship was bound for France via Halifax as part of a convoy, the better to avoid German U-boats, until miscalculations ended in a devastating "awkward, dangerous dance." Synthesizing locally published sources, a family archive, and World War I histories, Bacon (Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football, 2015, etc.) documents the terrifying incident in vivid detail: events leading up to the ships' arrival; a capsule history of Halifax and a reprise of the start of World War I; the nail-biting collision; and its gruesome, horrific aftermath. Fires blazed, fueled not only by the explosives, but by overturned stoves and furnaces in homes; shock waves blasted out windows, spewing glass; railroad tracks were thrown up, factories crushed, wooden houses reduced to kindling. A tsunami, created by the air waves, quickly followed. Many who survived the conflagration were caught in the undertow and drowned. The explosion, Bacon writes, "destroyed 6,000 buildings, rendering 25,000 people--almost half the population of Halifax--homeless in one-ear-splitting whoosh" and killed 1,600 instantly. Corpses, many dismembered or burned beyond recognition, were scattered everywhere. Survivors at first assumed that the city had been attacked by Germans; years later, trials revealed the culpability of the ships' captains. When word spread--by telegram--to other Canadian cities and to Nova Scotia's American neighbors, help was immediate and generous. Boston, especially well-prepared because of the war, sent doctors, nurses, medical supplies, and many millions of dollars in aid. Since 1976, Boston's annual Christmas tree has been a gift of thanks from Halifax.An absorbing history of disaster and survival.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.