December 6, 1917
The Halifax explosion
A munitions ship and a relief ship in the Narrows, five past nine
The Mont-Blanc was carrying two and a half thousand tonnes of high explosive into Halifax to join a convoy. In the Narrows she collided at low speed with the Imo, outbound, and caught fire.
She drifted burning against Pier 6 for twenty minutes while people came to the windows to watch. At five past nine she detonated - the largest man-made explosion before the atomic bomb. The blast flattened the north end of the city, emptied the harbour bottom, and threw part of her anchor three kilometres.
About eighteen hundred were killed, nine thousand hurt, and two hundred blinded by flying glass at the windows they had been watching from. Two thousand were left homeless in a blizzard that came the next day.
Vince Coleman, a train dispatcher, knew what was in the ship and stayed at his key to stop an incoming passenger train with three hundred people aboard. His last message was: Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys. The train stopped.
Boston sent a relief train the same night, and Nova Scotia has sent Boston a Christmas tree every year since.
A train dispatcher stayed at his key to stop an incoming passenger train, knowing what was in the harbour.