NOTES

PREFACE

1. 1   Because the author finished the manuscript some years ago, in 2007, and died in 2015, no doubt some of his new sources will have since been tapped. Indeed, the centenary of the explosion, in December 2017, saw many new publications.
2. 2   Many authors have opted to spell “Imo” in title case. The author of this work opted for “IMO” because the ship’s name derived from the initials of the Norwegian owner of the vessel, Ioan Martin Osmundsen. An image of IMO’s stern, held by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, in Halifax, shows IMO in uppercase, as does a painting of IMO owned by a Norwegian crewmember, Sigurd Olsen Hunstok, who lost his left arm due to the explosion. Additionally, a contemporary lawsuit that went before Canada’s Supreme Court also capitalizes the name: La Compagnie Générale Transatlantique v. The Ship “IMO.”
3. 3   Alan Ruffman continued to keenly support publication of this book after the author’s death.
4. 4   The author created and served as director of the Emergency Communications Research Unit (ECRU), located at the Carleton University School of Journalism, in Ottawa. Comprising journalism students ready to deploy anywhere in Canada on short notice, ECRU was a vehicle for many of Professor Scanlon’s studies of Canadian incidents and disasters.
5. 5   After the author’s death, Captain Robert Power generously took the time to do a detailed analysis of the author’s chapter on why the collision between IMO and Mont-Blanc happened. He commented that Professor Scanlon had a reasonable understanding but was confused about some nautical details. Every effort was made to adopt Power’s expert analysis while preserving the author’s well-considered, original explanation.
6. 6   The author’s son, Captain James David Scanlon, RCN (Ret’d), followed his sister Meaghan Scanlon as the second child to edit the manuscript. The author would have found him to be a nitpicker as well.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1. 1   Barry Cahill, Rebuilding Halifax: A History of the Halifax Relief Commission (Halifax: Formac Publishing, 2020).
2. 2   Ground Zero: A Reassessment of the 1917 Explosion in Halifax Harbour, Alan Ruffman and Colin D. Howell, eds., published by Nimbus Publishing and the Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary’s University, 1994. A collection of articles, including one co-authored by T. Joseph Scanlon, examining historical, cultural, and scientific aspects of the Halifax explosion, from papers presented at a conference hosted by the Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary’s University, 3–6 December 1992.

INTRODUCTION

1. 1   See Jacob A.C. Remes, Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity and Power in the Progressive Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), an important recent study that explores relief efforts in the Salem, MA, fire of 1914 and the Halifax explosion of 1917 from the perspective of the near cult-like faith in management by experts that arose in North America during the early twentieth century. Remes draws on Scanlon’s published work, as does Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster (New York: Viking, 2009), a broader study that also examines the effective response and solidarity of populations at the epicentre of disasters.
2. 2   The voyage from Halifax is 12.4 days at 10 knots, or 18.5 kilometres per hour, versus 15.1 days from New York. Calculations from www.ports.com, accessed 13 February 2020.
3. 3   On Halifax the classics are Harry Piers, The Evolution of the Halifax Fortress, 1749–1928 (Halifax: Public Archives of Nova Scotia, 1947), and C.P. Stacey, “Halifax as an International Strategic Factor,” Canadian Historical Association Annual Report (1949), 46–56.
4. 4   John Joseph Greenough, The Halifax Citadel, 1825–60: A Narrative and Structural History (Canadian Historic Sites No. 17) (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1977); Cameron Pulsifer, “‘Something More Durable …’: The British Military’s Building of Wellington Barracks and Brick Construction in 19th-Century Halifax,” Acadiensis 32 (Autumn 2002): 50–68; A.J.B. Johnston, Defending Halifax: Ordnance 1825–1906 (History and Archaeology 46) (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1981).
5. 5   On British strategy and armed forces in North America in the 19th century see J. Mackay Hitsman, Safeguarding Canada 1763–1871 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), and the encyclopaedic treatment in Kenneth Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815–1908 (London: Longmans, 1967).
6. 6   C.P. Stacey, Canada and the British Army, 1846–1871: A Study in the Practice of Responsible Government (London: Longmans, 1936).
7. 7   Johnston, Defending Halifax; Clarence Stewart Mackinnon, “The Imperial Fortresses in Canada: Halifax and Esquimalt, 1871–1906” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1965). The account of the development of the British garrison and defences to 1906 is based on these titles.
8. 8   The present account of the Canadian land forces after 1860, and the development of the defences at Halifax and on the East Coast after 1905–6, is based on the following titles: Roger F. Sarty, “Silent Sentry: A Military and Political History of Canadian Coast Defence, 1860–1945” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1983); Brian Douglas Tennyson and Roger Sarty, Guardian of the Gulf: Sydney, Cape Breton and the Atlantic Wars (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000); Brian Douglas Tennyson, Nova Scotia at War 1914–1919 (Halifax: Nimbus, 2017); and Jay White, “The Garrison Response to the Halifax Disaster, 6 December 1917,” draft report for the Halifax Defence Complex, Parks Canada, 2014, https://hmhps.ca/pdf/The-Garrison-Response-to-the-Halifax-Disaster_James_White_Preliminary_Report_2014-04-09.pdf, accessed 29 January 2020. In a special category is M. Stuart Hunt, Nova Scotia’s Part in the Great War (Halifax: Nova Scotia Veteran Publishing, 1920), which includes short chapters on each of the units at Halifax, evidently written by officers of the units, that include information not available elsewhere.
9. 9   Mackinnon, “Imperial Fortresses,” 388.
10. 10   The account of Canadian naval development is based on Gilbert N. Tucker, The Naval Service of Canada: Its Official History, Vol. I: Origins and Early Years (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1952); Michael L. Hadley and Roger Sarty, Tin-Pots and Pirate Ships: Canadian Naval Forces and German Sea Raiders 1880–1918 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991); William Johnston, William G.P. Rawling, Richard H. Gimblett, and John MacFarlane, The Seabound Coast: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Navy, 1867–1939, Vol. 1 (Toronto: Dundurn Press and Department of National Defence, 2010).
11. 11   Finding capable seamen for rapid naval expansion in wartime was a perennial issue throughout history for all maritime nations, and especially Britain, whose very survival depended on naval forces. In 1859 Britain established the Royal Naval Reserve, in which professional merchant seamen could enlist for periodic military training. Later, in 1903, came the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, which, much like army’s volunteers, was the inspiration for Canada’s volunteer militia, provided training in seamanship for men who were not mariners in evening sessions at local barracks, and such longer courses as the men could attend within the constraints of their civilian employment.
12. 12   Normally only single lights were exposed, only briefly and at irregular intervals. The object was to surprise any suspicious vessel, while not providing a steady light that could serve as a navigation beacon; only if an attack appeared to be under way would all the lights be exposed.
13. 13   Figures from Hunt, Nova Scotia’s Part in the Great War, 306–10. See also Technical History Section, The Atlantic Convoy System, 1917–1918 (The Technical History and Index, Vol. 3, Part 14 [CB 1515 (14)]) (London: Admiralty, 1919), 115. In August 1918, embarkations moved back to the St. Lawrence ports when German submarines began to operate off Halifax and British naval intelligence showed no German intention of striking in the St. Lawrence. During the Second World War, German submarines regularly operated off Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast, and in the St. Lawrence, as far upriver as Rimouski.
14. 14   H. Ritchie, The “Navicert” System during the World War (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1938), 25; Commander-in-chief North America and West Indies, “General Letter[s],” 14 March 1917, 13 April 1917, Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archives (TNA), ADM 137/504; ibid., ADM 196/43/263 (Makins’s record of service).
15. 15   J.A. Salter, Allied Shipping Control: An Experiment in International Administration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 171–72. Naval Service Headquarters in Ottawa regularly circulated lists of the ships on passage for “Belgian Relief” starting 29 February 1916, Naval Service Headquarters file (NS) 1048-36-3 pt. 1, Ottawa, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Department of National Defence records, Record Group (RG) 24, vol. 3757.
16. 16   Records of Chambers’s service are in TNA, ADM 196/42/459, and ADM 195/88/105. See also B.M. Chambers, Salt Junk: Naval Reminiscences, 1881–1906 (London: Constable, 1927).
17. 17   “Captain James Anderson Murray: Master of Both Empresses,” www.theempressofireland.com/captain-murray, accessed 25 January 2020.
18. 18   The account that follows draws on John Griffith Armstrong, The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy: Inquiry and Intrigue (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002), 10–24.
19. 19   “Particulars of Officers at Halifax Dockyard,” NS 37-25-7, LAC, RG 24, vol. 5635.
20. 20   Tucker, Naval Service, vol. 1, 162.
21. 21   Archibald MacMechan notes of interview with “Captain Newcombe of H.M.C.S. Niobe,” n.d., Nova Scotia Archives (NSA), Archibald MacMechan Halifax Disaster Record Office Materials, Manuscript Group (MG) 1, vol. 2124, no. 207, https://novascotia.ca/archives/images/MacMechan/201761926.jpg, accessed 9 February 2020; “Memorandum Re Work of Radiotelegraph Branch” [late 1917], and “Radiotelegraphy” [1917], NS 1000-5-5, Ottawa, National Defence Headquarters, Directorate of History and Heritage.
22. 22   Wyatt personnel file, NS 60-W-41, LAC, RG 24, Accession 1992–93/169, vol. 233.
23. 23   Correspondence 20 March–25 October 1918, NS 37-25-1, LAC, RG 24, vol. 5634.
24. 24   Department of Militia and Defence, Report of the Halifax Military Lands Board, 1915 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1916), 69–71.
25. 25   Victor L. Settle, “Halifax Shipyards, 1918–1976: A Historical Perspective” (M.A. thesis, St. Mary’s University, 1994), chap. 1.
26. 26   In 1917 Military District No. 6 included the provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick having become a separate command, Military District No. 7.
27. 27   Acting assistant paymaster general to paymaster, 6th Division, 29 November 1915, Benson personnel file, HQ 1056-3, pt. 1, LAC, RG 24, vol. 23865; “Statement of Service … Major-General Thomas Benson … (Deceased),” 3 September 1942, HQ 1056-3, pt. 2, ibid.
28. 28   Colonel William Ernest Thompson digitized personnel file B9664-SO44, LAC, Files of Canadian Expeditionary Force Soldiers, RG 150, accession 1992–93/166.
29. 29   Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick McKelvey Bell digitized personnel file BO611-SO48, LAC, RG 150, accession 1992–93/166; F. McKelvey Bell, The First Canadians in France: The Chronicle of a Military Hospital in a War Zone (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1917).
30. 30   “In Garrison – C.E.F.” and “Active Militia (Garrison Duty),” typed documents, both undated, HQ 71-26-99, pt. 2, LAC, RG 24, vol. 6358. Drafts in pencil for these returns are dated 26 December 1917. Returns for some individual units dated from before the explosion confirm that the figures given in the typed returns are generally accurate for the time of the explosion, and do not include additional troops brought in from units outside of Halifax as part of the relief effort.
31. 31   Wellington Barracks had been occupied in peacetime by the Royal Canadian Regiment, the permanent force unit that had moved to Halifax in 1905–6 to replace the departing British battalion. The regiment left Halifax in September 1914 to garrison Bermuda, at Britain’s request, and later went overseas as part of the CEF, leaving a small depot at Wellington Barracks. Militia units across the province each sent a detachment to Halifax to create the Composite Battalion to replace the Royal Canadian Regiment in the defence scheme.
32. 32   Department of Militia and Defence, Report of the Halifax Military Lands Board, 71–72; Returned Soldiers. Proceedings of the Special Committee … Comprising Evidence taken Feb. 7th to July 17th, 1917 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1918), 66, 177, 272, https://archive.org/details/returnedsoldiers00canarich/page/n6/mode/2up, accessed 11 March 2020.
33. 33   Desmond Morton and Glenn Wright, Winning the Second Battle: Canadian Veterans and the Return to Civilian Life 1915–1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 7–8, 39; Hunt, Nova Scotia’s Part in the Great War, 275–79; Returned Soldiers, 18, 32, 233, 999; Steve Schwinghamer, “Arriving at Halifax Before Pier 21,” https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/arriving-at-halifax-before-pier-21, accessed 4 June 2020.
34. 34   “Notes of Medical Relief Committee of Halifax Disaster,” n.d., NSA, MG 1, vol. 2124, no. 10i, https://novascotia.ca/archives/images/MacMechan/201761155.jpg, accessed 8 February 2020.

CHAPTER I

1. 1   The author’s bibliography was updated after his death, largely thanks to Halifax researcher and writer Barry Cahill, to include books published up to and around the 100th anniversary of the explosion.

CHAPTER II

1. 2   Most of the detailed movement records of the Royal Canadian Navy’s vessels during the First World War were destroyed in the mid-1960s with the closure of the naval facility at Sydney, Nova Scotia, where they were stored. See Armstrong, The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy, 26–29, for the most detailed reconstruction of the vessels present on 5–6 December 1917.
2. 3   Clara was 3979 gross tons; Mont-Blanc was 3121 gross tons (gross tons, different from displacement tonnage, is a measure of the carrying capacity of a merchant vessel). Wells, New York, to Port Convoy Officer, Halifax, 2 December 1917, transmission delayed until 3 December 1917, NS 37-25-8, LAC, RG 24, vol. 5635.
3. 4   For an analysis that reconciles reports from various sources of Mont-Blanc’s cargo see David Simpson and Alan Ruffman, “Explosions, Bombs, and Bumps: Scientific Aspects of the Explosion,” in Alan Ruffman and Colin D. Howell, eds., Ground Zero: A Reassessment of the 1917 Explosion in Halifax Harbour (Halifax: Gorsebrook Research Institute and Nimbus Publishing, 1994), 275–99. The article confirms that the drums on deck were filled with monochlorobenzol. At the Wreck Commission Inquiry, Willard Copes, a chemist with E.I. Du Pont Nemours and Company, the US explosives manufacturing giant, testified that he thought that the bill of lading used the word “benzol” as a common short form, and that the cargo was in fact the less volatile monochlorobenzol. Benzol, he explained, could not be safely carried in a vessel also loaded with explosives, but the more stable monochlorobenzol could. Copes testimony, 26 January 1918, “Investigation Mont Blanc and Imo Collision at Halifax December, 1917,” pt. 2, pp. 1501–22, LAC, Department of Marine records, RG 42-C-3-a, vol. 596.

CHAPTER III

1. 5   Le Médec testimony, 13 December 1917, “Investigation Mont Blanc and Imo Collision,” pt. 1, pp. 22–23, LAC, RG 42-C-3-a, vol. 596. The assumption at the time, and in subsequent accounts, was that sparks from the collision ignited highly volatile benzol from the broken drums on deck. The fact that the deck cargo was actually less flammable monochronobenzol lends weight to the assessment of Copes, the explosives expert who testified at the Wreck Commission Inquiry, that the fire was probably started by the heating effect of the friction of the two hulls on particles of the dry picric acid, which was the most flammable substance on board, in hold no. 1. He was led to this conclusion in part by the evidence that the smoke had initially come from the site of the collision, deep in hold no. 1.

CHAPTER V

1. 6   The Globe (Toronto), 8 December 1917, 1.
2. 7   Vice-Admiral Evelyn LeMarchant, a “convoy commodore” who was in Halifax waiting to sail with an upcoming convoy, visited the dockyard in the morning at Rear-Admiral Chambers’s request. He reported “I … interviewed Captain Frederick C.C. Pasco, R.N., and Captain Walter Hose, R.C.N., the former being badly cut about the face by glass. Both Officers were ably controlling the affairs in the Dockyard, super-intending the search for, and rescuing of men from the fallen buildings, caring for the injured and preventing the spread of fire and doing all that was possible at the time.” LeMarchant to secretary of the Admiralty, 9 December 1917, ADM 1/8507/273. Convoy commodores were retired senior officers who volunteered to go back to sea to direct the necessarily precise movements of merchant ships sailing together in a convoy and thereby leave the senior commanding officer of the escorting warships free to focus on defensive measures.

CHAPTER VIII

1. 8   These are the figures given in “Notes of Medical Relief Committee of Halifax Disaster,” p. 10, NSA, MG 1, vol. 2124, no. 10i.
2. 9   Also cited in Laura M. MacDonald, Curse of the Narrows (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 150.

CHAPTER IX

1. 10   For a more detailed explanation of how the railway telegraph worked and what codes were used, see Appendix B.
2. 11   The actual system used that day is in the firefighters’ museum in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

CHAPTER XI

1. 12   Commanding officer USS Tacoma to commander Squadron 2, Cruiser Force, “Report of Disaster in Halifax,” 11 December 1917, copy in NSA, MG 27, vol. 2 no. 31, reel 5125, courtesy of John Armstrong. Morrill was able to do little to assist Saranac, “ashore about ten miles northeast of the harbor entrance…. She was really close in, and at low tide the crew could walk ashore. Her starboard side was right up to the shore and they had placed bales of hay from the cargo so they could walk across without getting their feet wet, or even muddy.” Irl V. Beall, “The Halifax Explosion and the Cutter Morrill,” Inland Seas 23 (Fall 1967), 188, courtesy of Walter Lewis.

CHAPTER XII

1. 13   These figures are approximate. They have been revised from the original manuscript using “Notes of Medical Relief Committee of Halifax Disaster,” n.d., NSA, MG 1, vol. 2124, no. 10i; Bell to director general of medical services, “Report re Halifax Disaster Dec 6, 1917,” 25 January 1918, HQ 71-26-99-3, pt. 1, RG 24, vol. 6359. Major Oscar Cannon to DAA and QMG Halifax, 11 December 1917, MD6 file 86-4-2, pt. 1, ibid., vol. 4550, shows dates on which CAMC medical officers in Halifax and from outside the city reported for duty. “Report showing number of Medical Officers, Nursing Sisters who have proceeded, or are warned to proceed, to Halifax,” 10 December 1917, HQ 71-26-99-3, pt. 1, shows movements of all military medical personnel from other districts. This confirms that most support personnel such as orderlies were provided by the overseas draft of three medical officers and 200 other ranks fortuitously in Halifax, together with the personnel of the Army Medical Corps Training Centre at Wellington Barracks. There were only twenty-six support personnel provided from other districts, including two “dispensers” for medications.

CHAPTER XIV

1. 14   In 2003, its name was changed to Boston Trust & Investment Management Company.
2. 15   On 22 January 1918, the unofficial citizens’ Halifax Relief Committee was replaced by the Halifax Relief Commission established by the federal government.
3. 16   Temporary housing built on the Exhibition Grounds at the corner of Robie and Almon streets.

CHAPTER XV

1. 17   For a discussion of the number of persons who died in the explosion see Appendix C.
2. 18   International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) is an intergovernmental organization with 194 member countries that helps police work together “to make the world a safer place.”

CHAPTER XVI

1. 19   His grandson, Per Hunstok, a Sandefjord policeman, shared his grandfather’s seaman’s log, the government letter offering $100, and other documents with the Nova Scotia Archives.
2. 20   The author corresponded with Per Hunstok over several years and Per visited Halifax around the 100th anniversary.

CHAPTER XVII

1. 21   Janet Maybee, Aftershock: The Halifax Explosion and the Persecution of Pilot Francis Mackey (Halifax: Nimbus, 2015).

CHAPTER XVIII

1. 22   Three Mile Island (US) and Chernobyl (Soviet Union) were serious nuclear accidents. Bhopal (India) involved a release of deadly airborne chemicals.

CHAPTER XIX

1. 23   “Normality,” rather than “normalcy,” is considered by some the preferred usage. But the author, a veteran political journalist who served as the Toronto Star’s correspondent in Washington, DC, may have been alluding to US President Harding’s winning slogan, “Return to normalcy,” in the 1920 presidential campaign. The slogan, appropriately, implied a return to pre-war times. In response to criticism for his use of “normalcy,” Harding wrote in the New York Times: “I have noticed that the word caused considerable newspaper editors to change it to ‘normality’… “I have looked for ‘normality’ in my dictionary and I do not find it there. ‘Normalcy,’ however, I did find, and it is a good word.”
2. 24   There had been anti-conscription riots in Quebec and Major-General Lessard had been sent to deal with them.

CHAPTER XX

1. 25   Ground Zero, edited by Alan Ruffman and Colin D. Howell, was compiled from papers presented at 1992 symposium on the 1917 explosion. Hosted in Halifax, it was the first major conference dedicated to studying the explosion.
2. 26   This manuscript was written before the full recognition of the impact of global warming, which not only increases the potential for disaster, but underscores how the actions of individual countries or industries can have global impacts.

APPENDIX A

1. 1   In drafting this appendix, Professor Scanlon drew upon and reproduced part of his article “Rewriting a Living Legend: Researching the 1917 Halifax Explosion,” International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 15 (March 1997): 147–78.
2. 2   Lucy Scanlon recalls this trip with her father. She remembers interviewing an elderly woman, very young at the time of the explosion, who clearly recalled feeling the blast and seeing the glass shattering.
3. 3   These are available online—https://novascotia.ca/archives/macmechan/default.asp, accessed 27 May 2020—and were an important resource in editing the manuscript. References in the following notes identify other materials that were particularly useful in the editorial work.
4. 4   For the LAC’s holdings on the disaster, see “Thematic Guides—Halifax Explosion,” https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/politics-government/Pages/thematic-guides-halifax-explosion.aspx, accessed 27 May 2020.
5. 5   The main files are “Explosion and Consequent Fire at Halifax, N.S.” [Militia Headquarters file] HQ 71-26-99, 5 pts., RG 24, vol. 6358, “Soldiers Killed in Explosion at Halifax,” HQ 649-1-86, ibid., vol. 6536, and the complementary Military District No. 6 [MD 6] files: “Explosion Casualties,” 86-1-3, 2 pts., LAC, RG 24, vol. 4547; “Explosion Reports,” 86-2-1, ibid., vol. 4548; “Explosion—Report re Casualties,” 86-1-3-1, ibid., vol. 4548; “Explosion Relief Work. Generally,” 86-4-1, 4 pts., ibid., vol. 4549. Because of the central role of the army in the response to the disaster, these files, together with the army medical files referenced in the following note, proved to have been important sources for many of the chapters. For the records of the Royal Canadian Navy, see the notes on sources for chapter II.
6. 6   “Medical Services. Halifax Disaster,” HQ 71-26-99-3, 2 pts., RG 24, vol. 6359 and “Explosion Medical Aid,” MD 6 file 86-4-2, 2 pts., ibid., vol. 4550.
7. 7   A very good collection of Borden’s correspondence and the documents he saw concerning the disaster and relief effort is in vols. 89–90, pp. 46309-47016, LAC, Manuscript Group 26H, reel C-4325, frames 301-1033.
8. 8   Bell to director general of medical services, “Report re Halifax Disaster Dec 6, 1917,” 25 January 1918, HQ 71-26-99-3, pt. 1, RG 24, vol. 6359.
9. 9   W.A. Henry to deputy minister of marine, “‘Mont Blanc’ and ‘Imo,’” 22 December 1917, “Wrecks, Casualties and Salvage—Investigations—Collision between ‘Mont Blanc’ and ‘IMO’ in Halifax Harbour,” file 9704-244, pt. 1, LAC, Department of Transport records, RG 12, vol. 2827. This is the key Department of Marine file on the organization of the inquiry into the collision, and consists of four parts, but some are still closed to researchers. John Armstrong kindly provided copies of the material he was able to see in parts 1, 2, and 3.
10. 10   Acadia University’s president directed the rehabilitation department of the Halifax Relief Commission.
11. 11   The author believed later surveys of the Narrows seabed may have revealed the precise location of the explosion, but Nova Scotia marine geologist and seabed specialist Gordon B.J. Fader contends there is no evidence of a depression left by Mont-Blanc, though he says it is possible there was a temporary depression immediately after the explosion. He believes parts of Mont-Blanc’s hull remain on the rocky seabed and has seen a twisted piece of steel that may be the bow. J.D. Scanlon interview notes, 3 March 2018.
12. 12   This paragraph is reproduced from Scanlon, “Rewriting a Living Legend,” 162–63, and the quoted passage appears in chapter XIV of the present volume.
13. 13   This passage is reproduced from Scanlon, “Rewriting a Living Legend,” 164, and appears not to have been included in the final book manuscript.
14. 14   Captain James Turnbull, RNR [to Rear-Admiral B.M. Chambers], 8 December 1917, TNA, ADM 1/8507/273.
15. 15   MD 6 file 86-1-3 pt. 1, LAC, RG 24, vol. 4547.
16. 16   See Joseph Scanlon, “Source of Threat and Source of Assistance: The Maritime Aspects of the 1917 Halifax Explosion,” The Northern Marine/Le marin du nord 10 (October 2000): 39–50, for fuller citations of sources used for the account of the collision, explosion, and subsequent investigation in chapters II, III, IV, XVII, and XVIII of the present book. The most useful sources for editorial work on these chapters were the typed transcript of the initial inquiry by the Wreck Commissioner’s Court, 13 December 1917–31 January 1918, “Investigation Mont Blanc and Imo Collision at Halifax December, 1917,” LAC, Department of Marine records, RG 42-C-3-a, vols. 596-597, and In the Supreme Court of Canada … Between Campagnie [sic] Generale Transatlantique and the Ship “IMO” … Exhibits (Halifax: MacNab Print, n.d.), ibid., vol. 597. Much of the testimony was printed and indexed for the final appeal to the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: In the Privy Council on Appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada between the Ship ‘Imo’… and La Compagnie Générale Transatlantique … Record of Proceedings, Volume 1 (London [?], 1919), https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_05977/2?r=0&s=1, accessed 18 May 2018. Also important were the Naval Service Headquarters files “Explosion at Halifax Dockyard Dec. 6th, 1917 General …,” NS 37-25-1, LAC, RG 24, vol. 5634; “Explosion at Halifax December 6th, 1917. Enquiries and Casualties,” NS 37-25-2, ibid.; “Halifax Dockyard … Report of Damages,” NS 37-25-3, ibid., vol. 5635; “Halifax Explosion … Re Handling of Vessels at Halifax,” NS 37-25-8, ibid.; “Naval Report on Halifax Explosion,” NS 37-25-9, ibid., and the main file from the British Admiralty, whose main contents are the excellent reports by Rear-Admiral Chambers to which are attached the reports of the commanding officers of the British warships in port, TNA, ADM 1/8507/273.
17. 17   Further information on the number of ships in Bedford Basin awaiting convoy sailings came from “Convoy Programme—HMS Ships Detailed as Escorts,” Naval Service Headquarters confidential file (NSC) 1048-48-2, LAC, RG 24, vol. 3773, “Arrivals at and Sailings from Halifax for Convoy—Instructions,” NSC 1048-48-8, ibid., vol. 3774.
18. 18   The most likely citation in Scanlon, “Source of Threat and Source of Assistance,” p. 48 n. 20; and p. 50, n. 35, is a British Ministry of Shipping file, MT 25/9/78576, which contains copies of Rear-Admiral Chambers’s reports and other naval material in ADM 1/8507/273, the file used by the editor.
19. 19   MD 6 file 86-2-1, LAC, RG 24, vol. 4548. This file, which comprises reports from all the army units at Halifax about personnel who gave notable service, was an important reference for this and other chapters of the original manuscript. It was equally useful for editorial work, as the original manuscript gave little information on military personnel, in contrast to the fuller identification of civilians. For information on all military personnel the LAC’s digitized “Files of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) … (RG 150),” https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/search.aspx, accessed 26 May 2019, was invaluable; another essential source was The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (corrected to 1st October, 1917), www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.8_06742_73/1?r=0&s=1, accessed 29 December 2019, and earlier editions of the Militia List available on this website. For Canadian naval personnel see NS 37-25-2, LAC, RG 24, vol. 5634; TNA, ADM 1/8507/273; The Canadian Navy List for January, 1918, https://navalandmilitarymuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/CFB-Esquimalt-Museum-Navy-List-1918-January.pdf, accessed 7 February 2020, and the full run of the Navy List from 1910 available on this website.
20. 20   “Report of Lieut. C.A. McLennan, on Alarm that Wellington Magazine was on fire December 6th, 1917” [c. 16 January 1918], MD 6 file 86-2-1, LAC, RG 24, vol. 4548, quoted, and the main source in the manuscript, has been supplemented by the fuller account in “Personal Narrative. Lieut. C.A. MacLennan [sic], … revised March, 1918,” NSA, MG 1, vol. 2124, no. 201, https://novascotia.ca/archives/MacMechan/archives.asp?ID=201&Page=201761907, accessed 22 June 2020. See also on the naval parties present, [interview notes with] “Lieut.-Eng. Roy Bannatyne, Sunday Dec. 16 [1917], ibid., no. 48c, https://novascotia.ca/archives/MacMechan/archives.asp?ID=48&Page=201761372, accessed 22 June 2020; Lieutenant E.B. Thompson, RNR to commanding officer HMS Changuinola, 7 December 1917, TNA, ADM 1/8507/273.
21. 21   This chapter draws on Joseph Scanlon, “The Magnificent Railways: Rail Response to the 1917 Halifax Explosion,” Canadian Rail no. 461 (November–December 1997): 143–53.
22. 22   Possibly Ralph S. Mohr, Rhode Island Governors for Three Hundred Years (Providence, RI: State of Rhode Island, 1954).
23. 23   The author’s papers are now part of the E.L. Quarantelli archive at the Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware.
24. 24   On the Nova Scotia Branch of the Red Cross, whose executive members Agnes Dennis, Edna May Sexton, and May McCurdy joined the committee, see Sarah Glassford, Mobilizing Mercy: A History of the Canadian Red Cross (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017), 112, 122; Hunt, Nova Scotia’s Part in the Great War, 350–63; Lois K. Yorke, “Best, Edna May Williston (Sexton),” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15 (University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–), http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/best_edna_may_williston_15E.html, accessed 20 February 2020; MacMechan, “Personal Testimony, Mrs. F.B. Sexton … revised Feb. 7, 1918,” NSA, MG 1, vol. 2124, no. 224, https://novascotia.ca/archives/MacMechan/archives.asp?ID=224, accessed 3 February 2020.
25. 25   See, for example, Joseph Scanlon, “Identifying the Tsunami Dead in Thailand and Sri Lanka: Multi-National Emergent Organizations,” International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 26, no. 1 (March 2008), pp. 1–18.
26. 26   The accounts of Halifax journalist James Hickey and Truro publisher Alfred Coffin were revised with new information from Michael Dupuis, Bearing Witness: Journalists, Record Keepers and the 1917 Halifax Explosion (Halifax: Fernwood, 2017), 17–28, 57–62, and the online edition of the Truro Daily News, https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00593_191709/35?r=0&s=1, accessed 15 March 2020. The ocean cable link from Halifax to Havana is explained in John A. Britton, Cables Crises, and the Press: The Geopolitics of the New Information System in the Americas, 1866–1903 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013), 176–77, and in “New Cable for the Spanish,” New York Times (10 May 1898), 1. The section on censorship in the original manuscript examined newspaper accounts to suggest, correctly, what information had been censored. It has been rewritten with the following sources to explain the censorship regulations and the organization that applied them: “Explosion at Halifax, Dec 6th 1917,” file 350, LAC, Department of the Secretary of State, Office of the Chief Press Censor, RG 6E, vol. 621, reel T-102; “Submarine Cable Communications … Report of D.C.C. [Deputy Chief Censor] from 1914–1918,” NSC 1029-4-4, and “Censorship Press,” NSC 1029-6-7, LAC, RG 24, reel C-5862; Jeffrey A. Keshen, “All the News That Was Fit to Print: Ernest J. Chambers and Canadian Censorship, 1914–1919,” Canadian Historical Review 97 (December 1992): 315–43, the same author’s Propaganda and Censorship during Canada’s Great War (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1996), 67–115; Dupuis, Bearing Witness, chap. 1.
27. 27   The sources used for editorial work were Chambers to secretary of the Admiralty, 22 December 1917, 5 January 1918, TNA, ADM/1620; Chambers to commander-in-chief, North America and West Indies, “History of the Canadian Convoy Organisation,” 2 December 1918, folios 110-113, TNA, ADM 137/2658; messages 6 to 20 December 1917, Naval Service Headquarters secret file 1048-48-1, pt. 3, LAC, RG 24, vol. 3773.
28. 28   The sections “Secret Wage Deal,” “Men Needed Overseas,” and “Military Red Tape” distilled the essential story but missed elements in the scattered documentation. They have been reworked on the basis of HQ 71-26-99, pts. 3–4, LAC, RG 24, vol. 6358, HQ 71-26-99-6, ibid., vol. 6359; HQ 71-26-99-14, ibid. and the corresponding MD 6 files: 86-1-11, ibid., vol. 4548; 86-3-1, ibid.; 86-4-1, pts. 2–4, ibid., vols. 4549–4950.