SS Mont-Blanc

The Raylton Dixon & Co shipyard built Mont-Blanc in Middlesbrough, England, as Yard Number 460 for the Société Générale de Transport Maritime (SGTM). She was a typical three island-style general cargo ship. Mont-Blanc was built to the same set of plans used to build the New Zealand steamship SS Whangape, a sister ship launched a few months after Mont-Blanc. The SGTM registered Mont-Blanc at Marseille. Her code letters were KHTN. She was launched on 25 March 1899 and completed that June.

Mont-Blanc was a tramp steamer. In 1906, a ship-owner called E. Anquetil acquired her and registered her in Rouen. In 1915, she passed to another Rouen ship owner called Gaston Petit. On 28 December 1915, the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) acquired her, and registered her in Saint-Nazaire.

She was chartered to carry a complete cargo of miscellaneous types of military explosives from New York City to France in November 1917. Mont-Blanc was not an especially old vessel, but was a relatively slow, common tramp steamer, typical of many wartime freighters. She left New York City on 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. The vessel was fully loaded with the explosives TNT, picric acid, and guncotton in the hold, with barrels on deck containing the high-octane fuel benzole, which itself consisted mainly of the highly volatile and easily ignited hydrocarbons benzene and toluene. 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 submarine nets were raised. 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.

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. Mont-Blanc started moving at 7:30 am on 6 December, heading towards Bedford Basin. Mackey kept his eye on the ferry traffic between Halifax and Dartmouth and other small boats in the area. 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. 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.

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. …

All of the crew survived, except for one sailor who may have died of blood loss after being hit by debris from the blast, 20-year-old gunner Yves Quequiner. Casualties included about 2,000 known dead and some 9,000 injured. More than 1,600 houses were destroyed by the explosion, with another 12,000 damaged. The explosion blew the Mont-Blanc into shrapnel, which may have injured many people in the blast zone; about 250 people lost an eye to either the shrapnel or in-blown window glass shards, and 37 people were blinded. The blast was regarded as the largest man-made explosion disaster in history until Hiroshima.

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. 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 antisubmarine defences, for causing the collision. 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; 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. 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. 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. Mackey's lawyer, Walter Joseph O'Hearn, asked a Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice, Benjamin Russell to issue a writ of habeas corpus. Russell agreed there was no justification for the charges and released the prisoner on 15 March 1918. As the captain had been arrested on the same warrant, he, too, was given a written discharge, though he had not spent any time in jail. Many people were most displeased with Russell's decision, including Attorney General Orlando Tiles Daniels. …

Mont-Blanc was completely blown to pieces, and the remains of her hull were launched nearly 300 metres (1,000 ft) into the air. 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 miles) north of the blast site, and her anchor shank, which landed 3.2 kilometres (2 miles) south, are mounted where they landed as monuments to the explosion. 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.

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.