 Mont-Blanc in 1899 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 France | |
| Name | Mont Blanc |
| Namesake | Mont Blanc |
| Owner |
|
| Port of registry |
|
| Builder | SirRaylton Dixon & Co,Middlesbrough |
| Yard number | 460 |
| Laid down | March 23, 1899 |
| Launched | March 25, 1899 |
| Completed | June 1899 |
| Maiden voyage | November 1900 |
| Identification |
|
| Fate | collision and explosion, December 6, 1917 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | cargo ship |
| Tonnage | 3,279 GRT, 1,919 NRT |
| Length | 97.5 m (320.0 ft) |
| Beam | 13.7 m (44.8 ft) |
| Depth | 4.7 m (15.3 ft) |
| Installed power | 247NHP |
| Propulsion | |
| Armament | in WW1: 2 ×naval guns |
SSMont-Blanc was acargosteamship that was built inMiddlesbrough, England, in 1899 for aFrench shipping company.[1] On Thursday morning, December 6, 1917, she enteredHalifax Harbour inNova Scotia, Canada, laden with a full cargo of highly volatile explosives. As she made her way through the Narrows towards Bedford Basin, she was involved in a collision withImo, a Norwegian ship. A fire aboard the ship ignited her wet and dry cargo - 2,300 tons ofpicric acid, 500 tons ofTNT, and 10 tons ofguncotton. The resultantHalifax Explosion killed about 2,000 people and injured about 9,000.
TheRaylton Dixon & Co shipyard builtMont-Blanc inMiddlesbrough, England, as Yard Number 460 for the Société Générale de Transport Maritime (SGTM). She was a typicalthree island-style general cargo ship.Mont-Blanc was built to the same set of plans used to build the New Zealand steamshipSSWhangape, a sister ship launched a few months afterMont-Blanc.[2] The SGTMregisteredMont-Blanc atMarseille.[3] Hercode letters were KHTN.[4] She was launched on 25 March 1899 and completed that June.
Mont-Blanc was atramp steamer. In 1906, a ship-owner called E. Anquetil acquired her and registered her inRouen. In 1915, she passed to another Rouen ship owner called Gaston Petit. On 28 December 1915, theCompagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) acquired her, and registered her inSaint-Nazaire.[3]
She was chartered to carry a complete cargo of miscellaneous types of military explosives from New York City to France in November 1917.Mont-Blanc was not an especially old vessel, but was a relatively slow, common tramp steamer, typical of many wartime freighters.[5] She left New York City on December 1 to join a convoy inHalifax, Nova Scotia. She arrived from New York late on 5 December, under the command of Aimé Le Medec.[6] The vessel was fully loaded with the explosivesTNT,picric acid, andguncotton in the hold, with barrels on deck containing the high-octane fuelbenzole, which itself consisted mainly of the highly volatile and easily ignited hydrocarbonsbenzene andtoluene.[7] She intended to join a slow convoy gathering in Bedford Basin readying to depart for Europe, but was too late to enter the harbour before the submarine nets were raised.[6] Ships carrying dangerous cargo were not allowed into the harbour before the war, but the risks posed by German submarines had resulted in a relaxation of regulations.[8]
Francis Mackey, an experienced harbour pilot, had boardedMont-Blanc on the evening of 5 December; he had asked about "special protections" such as a guard ship given the steamer's cargo, but no protections were put in place.[9]Mont-Blanc started moving at 7:30 am on 6 December, heading towards Bedford Basin.[10][11][12] Mackey kept his eye on the ferry traffic between Halifax and Dartmouth and other small boats in the area.[13] He first spotted the outboundSSImo when she was about 1.21 kilometres (0.75 mi) away and became concerned as her path appeared to be heading towards his ship's starboard side, as if to cut him off his own course. Mackey gave a short blast of his ship's signal whistle to indicate that he had the right of way, but was met with two short blasts fromImo, indicating that the approaching vessel would not yield her position.[14][15][16] The captain orderedMont-Blanc to halt her engines and angle slightly to starboard, closer to the Dartmouth side of the Narrows. He let out another single blast of his whistle, hoping the other vessel would likewise move to starboard, but was again met with a double blast in negation.[17]
Sailors on nearby ships heard the series of signals, and realizing that a collision was imminent, gathered to watch asImo bore down onMont-Blanc.[18] Though both ships had cut their engines by this point, their momentum carried them right on top of each other at slow speed. Unable to ground his ship for fear of a shock that would set off his explosive cargo, Mackey orderedMont-Blanc to steer hard to port (starboard helm) and crossed the Norwegian ship's bow in a last-second bid to avoid a collision. The two ships were almost parallel to each other, whenImo suddenly sent out three signal blasts, indicating the ship was reversing its engines. The combination of the cargoless ship's height in the water and thetransverse thrust of her right-hand propeller caused the ship's head to swing intoMont-Blanc.Imo's prow pushed into the French vessel's No. 1 hold on her starboard side.[19][9]
The collision occurred at 8:45 am.[20] While the damage toMont-Blanc was not severe, it toppled barrels that broke open and flooded the deck with benzol that quickly flowed into the hold. AsImo's engines kicked in, she quickly disengaged, which created sparks insideMont-Blanc's hull. These ignited the vapours from the benzol. A fire started at the water line and travelled quickly up the side of the ship as the benzol spewed out from crushed drums onMont-Blanc's decks. The fire quickly became uncontrollable. Surrounded by thick black smoke, and fearing she would explode almost immediately, the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship.[21][20] A growing number of Halifax citizens gathered on the street or stood at the windows of their homes or businesses to watch the spectacular fire.[22] The frantic crew ofMont-Blanc shouted from their two lifeboats to some of the other vessels that their ship was about to explode, but they could not be heard above the noise and confusion.[23] As the lifeboats made their way across the harbour to the Dartmouth shore, the abandoned ship continued to drift and beached herself at Pier 6 near the foot of Richmond Street.[24]
At 9:04:35 am, the out-of-control fire aboardMont-Blanc finally set off her highly explosive cargo, causing theHalifax Explosion.[25] The ship was obliterated and a powerfulblast wave radiated away from the explosion at more than 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) per second. A temperature of 5,000 °C (9,030 °F) and a pressure of thousands of atmospheres occurred at the centre of the explosion.[26][9]
All of the crew survived, except for one sailor who may have died of blood loss after being hit by debris from the blast,[27] 20-year-old gunnerYves Quequiner.[28] Casualties included about 2,000 known dead and some 9,000 injured. More than 1,600 houses were destroyed by the explosion, with another 12,000 damaged. The explosion blew theMont-Blanc into shrapnel, which may have injured many people in the blast zone; about 250 people lost an eye to either the shrapnel or in-blown window glass shards, and 37 people were blinded. The blast was regarded as the largest man-made explosion disaster in history untilHiroshima.[29]
Ajudicial inquiry known as the Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry was formed to investigate the causes of the collision. Proceedings began at theHalifax Court House on 13 December 1917, presided over by JusticeArthur Drysdale.[30] The inquiry's report of 4 February 1918 blamedMont-Blanc'scaptainAimé Le Médec, the ship'spilotFrancis Mackey, and CommanderF. Evan Wyatt, the Royal Canadian Navy's chief examining officer in charge of the harbour, gates, and antisubmarine defences, for causing the collision.[30] Drysdale agreed with Dominion Wreck CommissionerL.A. Demers' opinion that "it was theMont-Blanc's responsibility alone to ensure that she avoided a collision at all costs" given her cargo;[31] he was likely influenced by local opinion, which was strongly anti-French, as well as by the "street fighter" style of argumentation used byImo lawyer Charles Burchell.[32] According to Crown counsel W.A. Henry, this was "a great surprise to most people", who had expected theImo to be blamed for being on the wrong side of the channel.[33] All three men were charged withmanslaughter andcriminal negligence at a preliminary hearing heard by Stipendiary MagistrateRichard A. McLeod, and bound over for trial. Mackey's lawyer, Walter Joseph O'Hearn, asked aNova Scotia Supreme Court justice,Benjamin Russell to issue a writ ofhabeas corpus. Russell agreed there was no justification for the charges and released the prisoner on 15 March 1918. As the captain had been arrested on the same warrant, he, too, was given a written discharge, though he had not spent any time in jail. Many people were most displeased with Russell's decision, including Attorney GeneralOrlando Tiles Daniels. On 2 April, an attempt by prosecutorAndrew Cluney, on behalf of the attorney general's office to overturn the decision in theNova Scotia Supreme Court (in banco) failed for lack of jurisdiction (as did two subsequent bids to indict Mackey on 9 April and 2 October 1918). Mr. O'Hearn pointed out the lack of jurisdiction from the outset of the proceedings. Four of the five justices, including Chief JusticeEdward Robert Harris agreed. JusticeArthur Drysdale was the lone dissenter. Ultimately, Justice Russell's decision was final. The case,In re Mackey, was added as a citation to theCriminal Code of Canada beginning in 1919 under Section 262 entitled,Manslaughter defined. Russell also presided over the Commander Wyatt's grand jury hearing (19–20 March 1918) and trial (17 April 1918). The trial proceedings took less than a day and ended with an acquittal on both charges.[34][35][36][37]
In his autobiography, Russell reflected upon these particular proceedings. He stated: "Civium ardor prava jubentium gave me all that I could do in disposing of the cases with which I was bound to deal. One of these concerned the official in charge of the wiring across the mouth of the harbour. To suppose he had anything in the world to do with the disaster was an utterly lunatic notion. Yet, my impression is that the Grand Jury insisted on finding a true bill and placing him on trial. When the bill reached me, I got rid of it in the shortest and easiest way possible. It was simply nonsensical, and the fact a grand jury could find it was symptomatic of the condition of the common feeling."[38]
Drysdale also oversaw the first civil-litigation trial, in which the owners of the two ships sought damages from each other. His decision (27 April 1918) foundMont-Blanc entirely at fault.[30] Subsequent appeals to theSupreme Court of Canada (19 May 1919), and theJudicial Committee of the Privy Council in London (22 March 1920), determinedMont-Blanc andImo were equally to blame for navigational errors that led to the collision.[30][33][39]
Mont-Blanc was completely blown to pieces, and the remains of her hull were launched nearly 300 metres (1,000 ft) into the air.[40][41] Steel fragments from her hull and fittings landed all over Halifax andDartmouth, some traveling over four kilometres. Today, several large fragments, such as one ofMont-Blanc's guns, which landed 5.6 kilometres (3.5 miles) north of the blast site, and heranchor shank, which landed 3.2 kilometres (2 miles) south, are mounted where they landed as monuments to the explosion.[40][42] Others are on display at theMaritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, which has a large collection ofMont-Blanc fragments; many were recovered from the homes of survivors.
The wrecked remnants of one ofMont-Blanc'slifeboats were found washed ashore at the foot of Morris Street on 26 December 1917. Name boards from the boat were salvaged and collected byHarry Piers of theNova Scotia Museum and are today part of the collection of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.[43]
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in December 1917 | |
|---|---|
| Shipwrecks |
|
| Other incidents |
|
44°40′08″N63°35′50″W / 44.6688°N 63.5973°W /44.6688; -63.5973
