SS Mont-Blanc

History
France
Name: Mont-Blanc
Namesake: Mont Blanc
Owner: Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (French Line)
Port of registry: Saint-Nazaire, France
Builder: Sir Raylton Dixon & Co., Middlesbrough, Great Britain
Launched: 1899
Identification:
  • Signal Code Letters
  • K H T N
Fate: Completely destroyed by explosion of ammunition cargo on 6 December 1917
General characteristics
Type: General Cargo
Tonnage: 3121 gross tons
Length: 98 m (320 ft)
Beam: 13.7 m (44.8 ft)
Depth: 4.7 m (15.3 ft)
Installed power: Steam, coal fired
Propulsion: Triple expansion steam engine, single screw 247 ihp (184 kW)
Armament: Two defensive cannons

SS Mont-Blanc was a freighter built in Middlesbrough, England in 1899 and purchased by the French company, Société Générale de Transport Maritime (SGTM).[1] On Thursday morning, 6 December 1917, she entered Halifax Harbour in Nova 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 with the Norwegian ship, SS Imo. A fire aboard the French ship ignited her cargo of wet and dry picric acid, TNT, and guncotton. The resultant Halifax Explosion levelled the Richmond District and killed approximately 2,000 people.

Origins

A classic three-island style, general cargo steamship, Mont-Blanc was a tramp steamer, carrying diverse types of cargos around the world. The ship changed owners several times and was registered at first in Marseille, then Rouen and finally Saint-Nazaire, France. In World War I, Mont-Blanc was purchased from Gaston Petit on 28 December 1915 by the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique CGT (The French Line),[2] the French state-owned corporation that had taken charge of much of France's wartime shipping.

Final voyage to Halifax

She was chartered to carry a complete cargo of miscellaneous types of military explosives from New York to France in November 1917. Mont-Blanc was not an especially old vessel but was a relatively slow, common, three-island type tramp steamer, typical of many wartime freighters.[3] She left New York December 1 to join a convoy in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She arrived from New York late on 5 December, under the command of Aimé Le Medec.[4] The vessel was fully loaded with the explosives TNT and picric acid, the high-octane fuel benzole, and guncotton.[5] 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 nets were raised.[4] 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.[6]

Francis Mackey, an experienced harbour pilot, had boarded Mont-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.[7] Mont-Blanc started moving at 7:30 am on 6 December, heading towards Bedford Basin.[8][9][10] Mackey kept his eye on the ferry traffic between Halifax and Dartmouth and other small boats in the area.[11] He first spotted the outbound SS Imo 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 from Imo, indicating that the approaching vessel would not yield her position.[12][13][14] The captain ordered Mont-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.[15]

Sailors on nearby ships heard the series of signals and, realizing that a collision was imminent, gathered to watch as Imo bore down on Mont-Blanc.[16] 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 ordered Mont-Blanc to steer hard to port (starboard helm) and crossed the Norwegian ship's bows in a last-second bid to avoid a collision. The two ships were almost parallel to each other, when Imo 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 the transverse thrust of her right-hand propeller caused the ship's head to swing into Mont-Blanc. Imo's prow pushed into the French vessel's No. 1 hold on her starboard side.[17][7]

The collision occurred at 8:45 am.[18] While the damage to Mont Blanc was not severe, it toppled barrels that broke open and flooded the deck with benzol that quickly flowed into the hold. As Imo's engines kicked in, she quickly disengaged, which created sparks inside Mont-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 on Mont-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.[19][18] 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.[20] The frantic crew of Mont-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.[21] 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.[22]

At 9:04:35 am, the out-of-control fire aboard Mont-Blanc finally set off her highly explosive cargo, causing the Halifax Explosion.[23] The ship was blown apart and a powerful blast 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.[24][7]

Aftermath

All of the crew survived, except for one sailor who died from loss of blood after being hit by debris from the blast,[25] 20-year-old gunner, Yves Quequiner.[26] A judicial inquiry known as the Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry was formed to investigate the causes of the collision. Proceedings began at the Halifax Court House on 13 December 1917, presided over by Justice Arthur Drysdale.[27] The inquiry's report of 4 February 1918 blamed Mont-Blanc's captain Aimé Le Médec, the ship's pilot Francis Mackey, and Commander F. Evan Wyatt, the Royal Canadian Navy's chief examining officer in charge of the harbour, gates and anti-submarine defences, for causing the collision.[27] Drysdale agreed with Dominion Wreck Commissioner L.A. Demers' opinion that "it was the Mont-Blanc's responsibility alone to ensure that she avoided a collision at all costs" given her cargo;[28] he was likely influenced by local opinion, which was strongly anti-French, as well as by the "street fighter" style of argumentation used by Imo lawyer Charles Burchell.[29] According to Crown counsel W.A. Henry, this was "a great surprise to most people", who had expected the Imo to be blamed for being on the wrong side of the channel.[30] All three men were charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence at a preliminary hearing heard by Stipendiary Magistrate Richard A. McLeod, and bound over for trial. However, a Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice, Benjamin Russell found there was no evidence to support these charges. Mackey was discharged on a writ of habeas corpus and the charges dropped. As the captain and pilot had been arrested on the same warrant, the charges against Le Médec were also dismissed. This left only Wyatt to face a grand jury hearing. On 17 April 1918 a jury acquitted him in a trial that lasted less than a day.[31][32][33]

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) found Mont-Blanc entirely at fault.[27] Subsequent appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada (19 May 1919), and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London (22 March 1920), determined Mont-Blanc and Imo were equally to blame for navigational errors that led to the collision.[27][30][34]

Remains of ship

Mont-Blanc was completely blown to pieces, and the remains of her hull were launched nearly 300 metres (1,000 ft) into the air.[35][36] Steel fragments from her hull and fittings landed all over Halifax and Dartmouth, some traveling over four kilometres. Today several large fragments, such as one of Mont-Blanc's guns, which landed 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) north of the blast site, and her anchor shank, which landed 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) south, are mounted where they landed as monuments to the explosion.[35][37] Others are on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax which has a large collection of Mont-Blanc fragments; many were recovered from the homes of survivors.

Mont Blanc Anchor Site 1

The wrecked remnants of one of Mont-Blanc's lifeboats were found washed ashore at the foot of Morris Street on 26 December 1917. Name boards from the boat were salvaged and collected by Harry Piers of the Nova Scotia Museum and are today part of the collection of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.[38]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "The History of Mont Blanc" from the French Lines website.
  2. ↑ "The History of Mont Blanc"
  3. ↑ The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic "Ships of the Halifax Explosion" web page indicates that Mont-Blanc was nowhere near being the oldest ship assembled in the harbour.
  4. 1 2 Kitz & Payzant 2006, p. 16.
  5. ↑ Flemming 2004, p. 16.
  6. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, pp. 19–20.
  7. 1 2 3 Lilley, Steve (January 2013). "Kiloton killer". System Failure Case Study. NASA. 7 (1).
  8. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, pp. 15–19, 27.
  9. ↑ Flemming 2004, pp. 17, 22.
  10. ↑ Armstrong 2002, p. 32.
  11. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, p. 32.
  12. ↑ Kitz 1989, p. 15.
  13. ↑ Flemming 2004, p. 24.
  14. ↑ Ruffman, Alan; Findley, Wendy (2007). "The Collision". The Halifax Explosion.
  15. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, p. 38.
  16. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, p. 39.
  17. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, pp. 40–41.
  18. 1 2 Flemming 2004, p. 25.
  19. ↑ Kitz 1989, p. 19.
  20. ↑ Kitz 1989, pp. 22–23.
  21. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, p. 49.
  22. ↑ Flemming 2004, pp. 25–26.
  23. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, p. 58.
  24. ↑ Ruffman & Howell 1994, p. 277.
  25. ↑ Janet Kitz, December 1917: Revisiting the Halifax Explosion, Halifax: Nimbus (2006) p. 84
  26. ↑ SS Mont Blanc crew manifest of 9 November 1917, p. 2 Retrieved from the Ellis Island Database.
  27. 1 2 3 4 Flemming 2004, p. 71.
  28. ↑ Johnston, William; Rawling, William; Gimblett, Richard; MacFarlane, John (2010). The seabound coast. Dundurn Press. pp. 525–526. ISBN 9781554889082.
  29. ↑ Armstrong 2002, pp. 113–114, 122.
  30. 1 2 Armstrong 2002, p. 187.
  31. ↑ Mac Donald 2005, p. 270.
  32. ↑ Armstrong 2002, pp. 196–201.
  33. ↑ Zemel 2014, pp. 255, 303.
  34. ↑ Kitz, Janet (2002). "The Inquiry into the Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917: the legal aspects". Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. 5: 64.
  35. 1 2 The Halifax Explosion
  36. ↑ Ground Zero: A Reassessment of the 1917 explosion in Halifax Alan Ruffman and Colin D. Howell editors, Nimbus Publishing (1994), p. 277.
  37. ↑ Halifax Regional Municipality "Mont-Blanc Mounument"
  38. ↑ "Name-boards of one of the Lifeboats of the French munition Steamship", Mont Blanc of Rouen", Harry Piers Museum Maker, Nova Scotia Archives

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Coordinates: 44°40′08″N 63°35′50″W / 44.6688°N 63.5973°W / 44.6688; -63.5973

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