Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Debilian Choker Boarding and I'm fair. And every year
Speaker 1: on December seven, Americans remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,
Speaker 1: in which was an attack that killed thousands and launched
Speaker 1: the US into World War Two. But what many Americans
Speaker 1: might not know is that our neighbor to the north, Canada,
Speaker 1: commemorates a sad historical moment of its own just one
Speaker 1: day before, and that's the Halifax explosion. And the Halifax explosion,
Speaker 1: which took place on December six, nine seventeen, has been
Speaker 1: called one of the worst disasters in Canada's history, one
Speaker 1: of the largest man made non nuclear explosions in history ever,
Speaker 1: and the largest man made explosion prior to Hiroshima. So
Speaker 1: it's not going to be our most uplifting episode ever,
Speaker 1: as you can tell, but it is one of our
Speaker 1: most requested and I would say especially in the past year,
Speaker 1: I've noticed a huge uptick in request for this topic,
Speaker 1: and um certainly as we've approached the anniversary date of
Speaker 1: December six as well. But the story of this disaster
Speaker 1: starts with two ships which weren't even supposed to be
Speaker 1: in Halifax at the same time in the first place,
Speaker 1: trying to pass each other in the harbor. And so
Speaker 1: we're going to tell you about what happened, what caused
Speaker 1: the explosion, of course, the toll that it took on Halifax,
Speaker 1: and the rescue effort that followed too, and then, of course,
Speaker 1: because this is World War One, some suspicions kind of
Speaker 1: an alternate history that people have thought up um and
Speaker 1: assumed had to be the cause of a disaster of
Speaker 1: this magnitude. But first we're gonna set the stage a
Speaker 1: little bit to help people understand a little bit about
Speaker 1: Halifax at this time during World War One. Some basic background.
Speaker 1: Halifax was established as a fortified settlement by the British
Speaker 1: in seventeen forty nine and had become the capital of
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia by nineteen hundred. It had served as a
Speaker 1: garrison city to the British Empire armies, but after British
Speaker 1: forces left in nineteen oh six, it needed kind of
Speaker 1: a new purpose, so the city's port facilities grew and
Speaker 1: new factories were developed, turning Halifax into Nova Scotia's commercial center.
Speaker 1: Portly makeover so because of its port facilities, Halifax became
Speaker 1: a key player in the Allied war effort during World
Speaker 1: War One, even though it was obviously pretty far removed
Speaker 1: from the main battlefields in the war. But when the
Speaker 1: war started in nineteen fourteen, Canada had gotten involved, had
Speaker 1: pledged its support to Great Britain to resist German aggression,
Speaker 1: and so the country's factory started to produce munitions and
Speaker 1: other supplies as a way of all their supporting the war,
Speaker 1: and since it was Canada's Since Halifax was Canada's main
Speaker 1: port on the East Coast, it handled tons of shipping
Speaker 1: during the war, like thousands of Allied cargo ships that
Speaker 1: would go through its harbor before heading on over to Europe.
Speaker 1: Everything from soldiers to munitions to food would pass through
Speaker 1: halifax It's harbor, and because of its stance in the
Speaker 1: war and the type of cargo that was passing through
Speaker 1: the port, they did have to take some precautions. According
Speaker 1: to a History magazine article by Andrew hynd And, nightly
Speaker 1: blackout was an effect, for example, to protect the port
Speaker 1: from German submarines. There was also an anti submarine boom,
Speaker 1: or a kind of net that was also spread across
Speaker 1: the entrance of the harbor from dusk to dawn to
Speaker 1: restrict access to the harbor during the night, and that's
Speaker 1: going to be pretty crucial to the story. So the
Speaker 1: night of December five, nineteen seventeen, when our story begins,
Speaker 1: there were two ships that were unwillingly stuck on either
Speaker 1: side of this anti submarine boom, the one stuck on
Speaker 1: the outside, one stuck on the inside. One was a
Speaker 1: French freighter called the mont Blanc, and there was also
Speaker 1: a Norwegian freighter called them And the fact that these
Speaker 1: two ships were even there at the same time was
Speaker 1: kind of a coincidence, wasn't it. It was the Emo,
Speaker 1: under the command of Captain Hawk and Frome was supposed
Speaker 1: to be on its way to New York to pick
Speaker 1: up a cargo of food for the Belgian people. He
Speaker 1: had wanted to sail that afternoon. The captain did, but
Speaker 1: according to an article by Jesse Bradley and Military History,
Speaker 1: the coal he'd ordered for three pm delivery didn't show
Speaker 1: up until five thirty, when the harbor exit was already
Speaker 1: blocked off. On the other hand, the mont block which
Speaker 1: was commanded by Captain a may Limedic, was supposed to
Speaker 1: arrive on the following day, December six, but it showed
Speaker 1: up late in the afternoon of December five instead, which
Speaker 1: was too late to make it into the harbor. But
Speaker 1: they went ahead and they picked up a pilot named
Speaker 1: Francis Mackie Halifax. Just to explain the pilot thing, it
Speaker 1: was a compulsory port, which meant that a pilot had
Speaker 1: to be in charge of any ship that was entring
Speaker 1: or leaving the harbor. And so they picked up this pilot,
Speaker 1: and they had undergone an inspection by a Canadian naval
Speaker 1: officer so that they would be good to go into
Speaker 1: the harbor first thing into in the morning get on
Speaker 1: with business. So there's another important thing to note about
Speaker 1: the mont Blanc. Though the ship's cargo might have made
Speaker 1: some of the crew pretty nervous, seeing how they were
Speaker 1: on the wrong side the the unprotected side of that
Speaker 1: submarine boom. They had two thousand three tons of picric
Speaker 1: acid in the holds, two tons of t n T
Speaker 1: and ten tons of gun cotton between the main and
Speaker 1: spar decks. And then just just to add to things,
Speaker 1: because that doesn't sound like enough, thirty five tons of
Speaker 1: volatile Benzene and drums on the upper deck, and this
Speaker 1: combined of course made them basically a huge floating explosive.
Speaker 1: And according to that History magazine article, to Plana mentioned,
Speaker 1: having those drums of Bensall on the ship's deck was
Speaker 1: against regulations in the first place, So the ship was
Speaker 1: defying regulations by having those kind of explosives on deck,
Speaker 1: but also by not flying a red flag to signal
Speaker 1: that they had munitions on board. There's a reason why
Speaker 1: they didn't do it. It was because they were on
Speaker 1: the wrong side of that submarine net and the captain
Speaker 1: didn't want to let every German ship in the area
Speaker 1: or any potential Germans in the area know that he
Speaker 1: was carrying all these munitions and was out there in
Speaker 1: the open um for attack. Yeah, he thought it could
Speaker 1: turn them into a target. So the two ships are
Speaker 1: stuck where they are for the night, on either end
Speaker 1: of the harbor. Just to explain the harbor a little bit,
Speaker 1: because it can be kind of confusing if you can't
Speaker 1: see a picture of it. It's this long inlet. There's
Speaker 1: Bedford Basin where the EMO was for the night, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of at the top, and then there was
Speaker 1: Halifax Harbor, which opens up into the Atlantic, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of at the bottom, and that's where the mont
Speaker 1: Blanc was. Connecting these two anchorage areas is what's called
Speaker 1: the Narrows, and that's a passage that's about a mile
Speaker 1: long and only about half a mile y. So you
Speaker 1: really need to follow the rules while traveling. And I'm
Speaker 1: imagining it kind of like an hour glass. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: I haven't actually seen the map. I mean I guess
Speaker 1: that you could sort of related like an hour glass
Speaker 1: with one side that's clearly a lot smaller than the
Speaker 1: other generally, but a narrow part in between, a narrow
Speaker 1: part in between them. Yeah, that's the key part to
Speaker 1: remember here is it's kind of like two areas where
Speaker 1: you could anchor your ship and then a long, narrow
Speaker 1: part in between that you need to travel to get
Speaker 1: a pilot to navigate. And so the captain of the Emo,
Speaker 1: he was not at all happy about the situation about
Speaker 1: being stuck for the night. He was really anxious to
Speaker 1: get going, but his pilot, William Hayes, had agreed to
Speaker 1: spend the night on board so that they could get
Speaker 1: going first thing in the morning. The guys on the
Speaker 1: monk kind of had the same idea. A little after
Speaker 1: seven thirty am, they raised their anchor and they started
Speaker 1: traveling northward towards the Narrows and an inbound lane, traveling
Speaker 1: at a speed of about four knots. And then a
Speaker 1: little after eight am, the EMO entered the north end
Speaker 1: of the Narrows, heading southward at about seven knots, even
Speaker 1: though you weren't supposed to go fast sster than five
Speaker 1: knots in the harbor, So they're speeding along, I guess
Speaker 1: trying to make up for lost time, And I mean
Speaker 1: the captain of the EMO was just in a real hurry.
Speaker 1: Some sources suggests that the ship didn't even have official
Speaker 1: permission to depart when it took off. They were just
Speaker 1: going to get going. But the ships were still a
Speaker 1: mile apart at this point when their first entering the channel,
Speaker 1: traveling toward each other, and while it was barreling down
Speaker 1: the narrows, though, the EMO ran into some unexpected traffic changes.
Speaker 1: There was an American freighter that wanted to pass the
Speaker 1: Email on the wrong side, but the ship signaled to
Speaker 1: each other. They worked out how they were going to
Speaker 1: approach this and they were able to make the pass safely. However,
Speaker 1: this pass put the EMO in the wrong lane and
Speaker 1: on a collision course therefore with the mont Block. So Mackie,
Speaker 1: who was the pilot of the mont Blanc, saw the
Speaker 1: email change course and at first he wasn't too worried,
Speaker 1: you know, they had enough time to to correct it
Speaker 1: to be safe, and he founded one siren signal to
Speaker 1: indicate that his ship would stay to the starboard side,
Speaker 1: but the EMO answered with two sirens to say that
Speaker 1: it was going to steer to port, which would cause
Speaker 1: the ships to collide. So kind of mixed signals here
Speaker 1: and no agreement about how to proceed, and after that
Speaker 1: it was really just mass confusion. They signaled to each
Speaker 1: other again, but they couldn't work it out. Mackie tried
Speaker 1: to stop the engine, but of course slowing down and
Speaker 1: certainly stopping a big ship like that isn't very easy.
Speaker 1: And then finally Mackie tried to pull the ship to
Speaker 1: the left to just give the EMO room to pass by,
Speaker 1: but it was too late at that point. A little
Speaker 1: after eight thirty am, the EMO slammed into the mont
Speaker 1: Blanc and opened up a wedge of about three meters deep.
Speaker 1: Containers of benzine and picric acid smashed upon impact, and
Speaker 1: then as the ships drifted apart, sparks from that grinding
Speaker 1: steel of the ships started a fire. So Captain Limedeck
Speaker 1: saw the riding on the wall immediately and ordered his
Speaker 1: crew to abandon ship. They all jumped into lifeboats and
Speaker 1: road just as fast as they could over to the
Speaker 1: shore and took cover in the nearby woods. But they
Speaker 1: were basically the only ones who knew how dangerous the
Speaker 1: contents of the ship were. So of course, because the
Speaker 1: ship was not flying that tell tale red flag, a
Speaker 1: lot of people who weren't part of the crew didn't
Speaker 1: realize how severe the situation was, that it didn't just
Speaker 1: involve the two ships involved in the men on board.
Speaker 1: So hundreds of people had stopped what they were doing,
Speaker 1: and we're just gawking at this ship on fire with
Speaker 1: a huge column of smoke above it, And the docks
Speaker 1: started to fill up with spectators, and trams started to
Speaker 1: slow down and allow passengers to check out the situation.
Speaker 1: Rubber Neck a little bit, and people were gathered even
Speaker 1: at the windows of their homes and office buildings and
Speaker 1: um watching from far off factory roofs to just see
Speaker 1: what disaster was occurring down in the harbor. The fire
Speaker 1: department was alerted and so they sent people over, and
Speaker 1: a lot of small boats were approaching the Mont Blanc
Speaker 1: trying to fight the fire as the boat as the ship,
Speaker 1: i should say, was drifting across the channel and eventually
Speaker 1: stopped at Pier six. And this all just reminds me
Speaker 1: of what goes on kind of you know, have you
Speaker 1: ever been one of those tornado warning situations where people
Speaker 1: all of a sudden want to like run out of
Speaker 1: their houses or stand at the windows and look at
Speaker 1: what's about to happen. You just feel like it's so bad,
Speaker 1: like don't watch, just take cover. It's like one of
Speaker 1: those moments. But a few people did have an idea
Speaker 1: of what was going on and they took action. For example,
Speaker 1: a trained dispatcher at Richmond Station who had been warned
Speaker 1: by a sailor state at his post to stop a
Speaker 1: passenger train from coming into the area. He sent a
Speaker 1: telegraph that said, quote stop trains, ammunition ship on fire
Speaker 1: making for Pier six, goodbye. So all of this was
Speaker 1: going down, all of this gawking and trying to get
Speaker 1: a look at at the disaster the wreck and try
Speaker 1: and help, and try to help too, of course, when
Speaker 1: at nine oh six am the mont Blanc blew up
Speaker 1: and the ship was shattered into bits. The blast sent
Speaker 1: smoke and debrise somewhere from three to five miles into
Speaker 1: the sky, and of course soon enough all of those
Speaker 1: ship fragments came raining down on the north end of
Speaker 1: the city, hitting people, hitting buildings. The ship's gun, for example,
Speaker 1: landed five point five kilometers away, and it said that
Speaker 1: the shock from the explosion was felt as far as
Speaker 1: three kilometers away. The harbor bed was split and laid bare,
Speaker 1: and the rocks from it were also thrown around. And
Speaker 1: when the sea rushed back to fill in that hole
Speaker 1: in the harbor bed, it's sent a huge tidal wave inland,
Speaker 1: which affected people who were standing there on the piers watching.
Speaker 1: I think that's the most striking image for me to
Speaker 1: try to imagine, to the harbor bed just cleared of water,
Speaker 1: this empty pit and then wosh filling back in. Other
Speaker 1: ships in the harbor were destroyed or severely d imaged.
Speaker 1: Of course. The Emo, for example, was blown ashore and
Speaker 1: its captain, the pilot Haze, and five crewmen were all killed.
Speaker 1: A split second after that explosion, there was also this
Speaker 1: huge air concussion, a kind of shock wave that instantly
Speaker 1: destroyed everything in its path. Buildings and bridges collapsed, vehicles
Speaker 1: were thrown around, roads were cracked, tree snapped. Even buildings
Speaker 1: that withstood that wave lost their windows, and some of
Speaker 1: those buildings still fell when that wreckage that we mentioned
Speaker 1: came raining down face sky. Yeah, and that wave also
Speaker 1: killed hundreds of people instantly when they were hit by
Speaker 1: the shock wave, and many more were trapped in the
Speaker 1: ruins of buildings and became victims of the third onslot,
Speaker 1: which were fires that sprang up everywhere as results of
Speaker 1: damaged gas manes and overturned wood stoves and kindling in homes.
Speaker 1: We talked about that effect of earthquakes and things like
Speaker 1: that a little bit in our fire episodes San Francisco Fire.
Speaker 1: But basically, this entire district of Halifax called Richmond and
Speaker 1: some areas beyond that were completely decimated in just a
Speaker 1: matter of minutes. About two thousand people were dead, nine
Speaker 1: thousand more were injured and needed medical treatment, and about
Speaker 1: two thousand buildings were really badly damage, which meant that
Speaker 1: approximately fifteen thousand people were now homeless, and that's really
Speaker 1: a low estimate because it only counts those people who
Speaker 1: were found. Yeah, the death tolls considered by a lot
Speaker 1: of people to be too low. Among the dead were
Speaker 1: the city's fire chief and the deputy fire chief who
Speaker 1: had gotten to Pier six right before the explosion. Two
Speaker 1: hundred children and the staff of the city's orphanage, about
Speaker 1: one hundred students at Richmond School, sixty nine employees of
Speaker 1: the Canadian Government Railway, including the heroic Vince Coleman that
Speaker 1: we mentioned who sent that telegraph out, and many many others. However,
Speaker 1: though it kind of defies logic, because they were so
Speaker 1: close to the situation to start with, Captain Limaedeck and Mackie,
Speaker 1: who had taken shelter in the woods they survived. Who
Speaker 1: would figure that the guys who had been on the
Speaker 1: ship with the explosives, who jumped overboard and swam to
Speaker 1: the woods would make it. It's really surprising, but the
Speaker 1: rescue effort started almost immediately to to deal with this
Speaker 1: um this explosion and the after effects. About thirty minutes
Speaker 1: after the explosion is when things started to happen. People
Speaker 1: began to dig out the dead and look for survivors.
Speaker 1: But remember this is December and it is Nova Scotia,
Speaker 1: so their works soon got a lot tougher because a
Speaker 1: blizzard started later in the day and it was like
Speaker 1: the worst blizzard in the last twenty perfect timing, right,
Speaker 1: So that was of course bad news for all those
Speaker 1: people who were now homeless, who didn't have any shelter,
Speaker 1: and there was also concern about another potential explosion. All
Speaker 1: of those fires that had started and spread since the
Speaker 1: first explosion were still a very major threat because they
Speaker 1: were quickly heading for the powder magazine at the Wellington
Speaker 1: Military Barracks. The caused quite a bit of panic. People,
Speaker 1: even the injured ones, started heading for higher ground and
Speaker 1: they were encouraged to by authority, so they were being
Speaker 1: sent up. But soldiers were able to flood the munitions
Speaker 1: dump and keep the fire away from it, so there
Speaker 1: wasn't a second explosion after all, so it wasn't quite
Speaker 1: as bad as they thought it could be, and that
Speaker 1: was a really good thing too, because there were already
Speaker 1: so many people who were really badly in need of doctors,
Speaker 1: medical supplies, and just places to care for the injured.
Speaker 1: Doctors nurses and supplies started to come in from other
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia towns that day, and by the next day
Speaker 1: help was coming in from other Canadian provinces too, and
Speaker 1: the international response here was really significant as well. By
Speaker 1: two thirty that day, the U. S. Navy ships the
Speaker 1: Tacoma and the von Stoeben, on their way back from Europe,
Speaker 1: came into the harbor and met up with the U. S.
Speaker 1: S Colony and the U S. Coast Guard Cutter Moral.
Speaker 1: They offered up soldiers and marines to help patrol the area,
Speaker 1: and they turned the old Colony into a hospital ship
Speaker 1: with U. S. Navy docks running it along with some
Speaker 1: Canadian nurses, and over the next few days trains full
Speaker 1: of surgeons, doctors and nurses and more medical supplies came
Speaker 1: in from New England again, though facilities were packed so
Speaker 1: during this time doctors were forced to treat people and
Speaker 1: pretty much every room of any available hospital, including the kitchens,
Speaker 1: the corridors, and the closets. Some treated people on trains
Speaker 1: or in homes, in doctor's offices, or even drug stores,
Speaker 1: making do with what they could. The injuries, too, were
Speaker 1: really horrific, not the kind of thing that you would
Speaker 1: want to be treating on a train or in somebody's home.
Speaker 1: And um, one of the reasons why the injuries were
Speaker 1: so bad was because of all of that glass and
Speaker 1: the debris that had been flying around and hitting people.
Speaker 1: And will spare you some of the truly gory details,
Speaker 1: but eye injuries are often said to have been the
Speaker 1: most prevalent. And I mean, if you if you think
Speaker 1: about what we mentioned earlier, all those people running up
Speaker 1: to their windows to see the ship on fire and
Speaker 1: watching and and then getting faced with that explosion and
Speaker 1: h A lot of people ultimately needed to have one
Speaker 1: or both eyes removed. But besides medical care, there were
Speaker 1: other types of relief that were needed. By the afternoon
Speaker 1: of the explosion, the Halifax Relief Committee, which was a
Speaker 1: volunteer organization, was organized to help find ways to shelter
Speaker 1: the homeless, and identify the dead and the injured, and
Speaker 1: construct some sort of temporary housing for people to live
Speaker 1: through this blizzard. I mean, how bad would it be
Speaker 1: to survive the explosion and then freeze? Kidding? They also
Speaker 1: started to manage the donations that came in from around
Speaker 1: the world. Millions of dollars came in from several countries,
Speaker 1: including Britain, of course, and as far away as Australia.
Speaker 1: The US also started to send in supplies like food, clothing,
Speaker 1: and building materials including glass and the people who could
Speaker 1: install it. In the meantime, though, a lot of the
Speaker 1: homeless had to stay intense and that brutal cold weather.
Speaker 1: So on December thirteenth, nineteen seventeen, the ret commissioners started
Speaker 1: to investigate the explosion and the court. In to the
Speaker 1: military history article that we mentioned earlier, the chairman of
Speaker 1: this commission, Judge Arthur Drysdale, was really anti French and
Speaker 1: he felt that the pilot and the captain of the
Speaker 1: mont Blanc were quote wholly responsible and um it did
Speaker 1: seem like they were going to be held responsible for
Speaker 1: at least a small aspect of it. Initially, Captain Limeduck
Speaker 1: and Francis Mackie were arrested and charged with manslaughter for
Speaker 1: causing the death of William Hayes, who was the pilot
Speaker 1: of the EMO as we as we mentioned earlier, and
Speaker 1: the charges were eventually dropped and it was ruled that
Speaker 1: both the EMO and the mont Blanc were at fault.
Speaker 1: That didn't stop people from having other theories about what
Speaker 1: really happened. Oh yeah, we've always got some other theories,
Speaker 1: don't so. Some people for some time actually believed that
Speaker 1: Germany was behind the explosion. After all, it was during
Speaker 1: the war, and if you hadn't witnessed the explosion yourself,
Speaker 1: that you can imagine that might be the first thing
Speaker 1: that comes to your mind. Some people thought it was
Speaker 1: a zeppelin attack or a bombardment from a battle fleet.
Speaker 1: Still others later on thought that sabotage was behind this.
Speaker 1: These people think that the emo's captain and co pilot
Speaker 1: were both murdered by a crew member just before the explosion,
Speaker 1: allowing a German spy to come on board and orchestrate
Speaker 1: the accident, but witnesses have said that they saw the
Speaker 1: captain giving all the commands. Later though, during an inquiry,
Speaker 1: some harbor officers said that they had received calls inquiring
Speaker 1: about the movements of the ships, and rumors started again
Speaker 1: around when Dr Samuel Prince, who authored a study about
Speaker 1: the explosion a sociological study, said that it could be sabotage.
Speaker 1: There's been no definitive proof of this, though. These are
Speaker 1: just ideas that people had around this time, especially Yeah,
Speaker 1: so moving away from conspiracy theory and to rehabilitation and
Speaker 1: the reconstruction of Halifax. It obviously took years to rehabilitate
Speaker 1: the city and to identify the dead and to help
Speaker 1: survivors find their families. And if you visit the website
Speaker 1: of the Nova Scotia Archives, they have a whole section
Speaker 1: on the Halifax explosion. Actually, since people started recommending this topic,
Speaker 1: I've sometimes pointed them to that resoarch because it is
Speaker 1: so great, and we follow the Nova Scotia Archives on Twitter.
Speaker 1: They're really really nice about any research questions you might have,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's a it's a great place to go
Speaker 1: to learn more about the disaster and to see how
Speaker 1: Halifax was rebuilt. They have photos of the explosions aftermath
Speaker 1: and a film clip that's kind of like a silent
Speaker 1: movie that so disturbing too, because it is silent. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a very eerie And there's also a list of
Speaker 1: those who died. And what I found to be really
Speaker 1: interesting was the first hand accounts from some of the survivors.
Speaker 1: So we have part of an example here of a
Speaker 1: personal narrative given by a doctor M. J. Burris to
Speaker 1: the director of the Halifax disaster Record office at nine o'clock.
Speaker 1: Was just getting up shaving, felt the house shake and
Speaker 1: felt that something terrible had happened. I thought that there
Speaker 1: was a bombardment of some kind. The explosion was low,
Speaker 1: not so loud as the noonday gun, and he thought
Speaker 1: that it was a shell from a submarine. His little
Speaker 1: daughter downstairs screamed. A second explosion was louder, but still
Speaker 1: there was no breaking of glass. He was sure now
Speaker 1: that it was a bombardment. Ran downstairs, caught up his
Speaker 1: little girl and called to his wife and the maid
Speaker 1: to come to the cellar. Put the little girl in
Speaker 1: the cellar, then ran back for his wife, who would
Speaker 1: not come, met her at the door and pushed her
Speaker 1: down the cellar stairs, following her. They were all in
Speaker 1: the cellar when the quote big explosion came. Everything smashed.
Speaker 1: After waiting for some time for more, Doctor B came upstairs,
Speaker 1: went into office. A man was there with his face
Speaker 1: cut on, a Doctor B to dress it. Soon many
Speaker 1: people were there to be quote fixed up. Only small
Speaker 1: hurts came first, as Dr B lives near the ferry
Speaker 1: and people were not so badly injured in that part
Speaker 1: of Dartmouth. Later people from the north end came and
Speaker 1: were much worse hurt. One child had his skull fractured,
Speaker 1: broken like an eggshell. The brain substance was oozing down
Speaker 1: over the side of his face. He lived about three weeks,
Speaker 1: So that definitely puts um puts the explosion into perspective. UM,
Speaker 1: But I do like having a resource like that and
Speaker 1: having um having archives where you can look up all
Speaker 1: sorts of letters and pictures and get a better sense
Speaker 1: because I mean, so often we talk about things in
Speaker 1: kind of a big scale, but when you have letters,
Speaker 1: when you have quotes, it makes it so much more personal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes it real. So I definitely recommend checking that out.
Speaker 1: And sorry if we have had another down or episode
Speaker 1: for you here, but I think it's an important story
Speaker 1: and you guys wanted to hear it, and you guys
Speaker 1: wanted to hear it, and um, so I'm glad that
Speaker 1: we got to cover this one finally. And so you
Speaker 1: know for sure now that we do do listener requests,
Speaker 1: So if you have any, please email them to us.
Speaker 1: We're a history podcast at how Stuff Works dot com
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Speaker 1: of articles about all sorts of topics, including probably explosives
Speaker 1: and ships on our website at www dot how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
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