Explosive tale details horror, humanity surrounding Dec. 6, 1917, disaster in Halifax harbor

By PETER MAGNANI
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
"Curse of the Narrows" by Laura M. MacDonald (Walker & amp; Co., $26)
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- The collision of two ships in Nova Scotia's Halifax harbor Dec. 6, 1917, might be the biggest disaster in history that nobody has ever heard of. Yet those who read Laura MacDonald's thorough, harrowing and, ultimately, redemptive "Curse of the Narrows" will likely come to know this disaster better than any other.
What made it so horrifying was that one of the ships was packed tightly with high explosives, destined for use in the world war that had just drawn to a close. MacDonald makes clear the difference between explosives and mere munitions, which are bombs, bullets, mines, grenades and like devices manufactured from explosives but much more stable and less deadly when detonated.
Unprecedented explosion
By way of comparison, the 4,600 tons of war materiel that exploded in Port Chicago, in what is now Concord, killing 320 black dock workers in 1944 were munitions. When the cargo aboard the Mont Blanc exploded in Halifax, an entire neighborhood was leveled in what is said to have been the largest explosion on the planet until the detonation of atomic bombs. In fact, J. Robert Oppenheimer actually studied the Halifax disaster in order to understand what might happen when he set off one of the weapons his Manhattan Project was developing. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki each unleashed five times the explosive power of the Halifax disaster.
Except for the Port Chicago incident, all of the information recounted so far comes from MacDonald's book. It's an example of the care she has taken with the details of her account. What makes "Narrows" compelling is that most of the care in rendering details is reserved for telling the human element of the story and the equal weight she gives to victims, survivors and those who rushed in to provide aid.
Survivors' stories
MacDonald weaves at least 100 separate human stories into a complex tapestry of a community and its devoted allies striving against seemingly insurmountable odds to stave off annihilation. Eschewing dramatic flair or inflated sentimentality, MacDonald offers a straightforward narrative.
We get vivid, textured accounts of the hapless captain of the Mont Blanc who survived but nearly succumbed to the community's outrage; the eye doctor who stayed at the operating table for 57 hours, replacing assistants as they fell from exhaustion and performing so many extractions that he had to empty the bucket at his feet before he was finished; the pediatrician whose experience gave him enough information and insight that he went on to establish the previously unknown medical concept that children are built differently from adults and need to be treated differently.
Relief effort
And then there's the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Officials heard about the explosion and telegraphed repeatedly for details, their inquiries going unanswered because wires were down. So in the face of a midwinter blizzard, without knowing what was going on, they dispatched a train loaded with supplies and volunteers, including some of the first people who had ever actually been trained for relief work. When they arrived, they established, staffed and ran a hospital and helped the city fathers organize the relief effort.
By Christmas, Halifax had recovered enough to send a two-ton tree to Boston. Halifax revived that tradition in 1970, and every year since, the ceremonial tree-lighting on Boston Commons commemorates not just the start of the holiday season, but the time when people left their homes and ventured into the unknown, simply because they had heard that other people needed help.
With material like that, MacDonald didn't need to pump up the drama.
XMagnani is a writer at Contra Costa Times