The Ballad of Halifax

It dawned like any other day,
in nineteen seventeen;
the sixth day of December was
a morning bright and clear.
A tiny French munitions ship,
outside the harbour mouth,
prepared to join a ship convoy,
pulled her heavy anchor.

The Mont Blanc, as sailors knew her,
was like a floating bomb
loaded with explosive cargo,
to serve the First World War,
While inside the Bedford Basin
a Belgian ship, Imo
set sail from the crowded harbour
heading for open sea.

At the entrance to the Narrows
too close to Darthmouth side 
the Imo hit the Mont Blanc’s bow,
the ship was set ablaze
Abandoned by captain and crew,
it drifted t’ward Pier 6.
for twenty minutes she burned there
as crowds flocked to the shore.

They watched unaware of danger
that brewed on board the ship --
men and women and children stood,
as the fire burned on.
In the distance, passenger trains
headed for Halifax
converged upon the harbour with
seven hundred on board.

Warned by a terrified soldier,
train dispatcher, Colemen,
sent an alarm by telegraph, 
stop all the trains at once!
With this purely selfless action
he saved the lives on board
making his last brave sacrifice 
as trains ground to a halt.

For at 9:05 that morning
there was a blinding flash;
the fated Mont Blanc exploded
no piece of her remained.
Fragments rained down on the harbour --
three-thousand tons of ship
were blown into tiny pieces
and scattered far and wide.

One of the ship's guns jettisoned
for three and a half miles
while its anchor flew for two miles
the other direction
to come back to earth at Armdale.
A mini tidal wave
reverberated from the ship
carrying destruction.

Tugboats Hilford and Curaca
were thrown ‘cross the harbour,
and the little schooner, Lola,
blown to tiny pieces.
Ships out at sea off Halifax
fifty miles from harbour
came to port to help the rescue
for they had felt the blast.

The force raged into the city,
the north end was destroyed
and the poor people on the piers
were all killed instantly.
Nineteen hundred deaths recorded,
the injured -- countless more,
with thousands left without a home
this deadly winter day.

So much was the force of that blast,
that windows were shattered 
in Truro, sixty miles away,
and the shock waves were felt 
some two hundred seventy miles
north east from the harbour
in Sydney, Cape Breton island,
as if it were a quake

Tragically, this December day,
in nineteen seventeen
has a sad history to tell
for it is labeled as
Canada’s largest disaster;
and ruefully known as
the largest Man-made explosion
before Atomic Bombs. 


june 2003