On this the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, this personal account of a survivor, Betty Rogers Large, as told in her book
Out of Thin Air, seems appropriate.
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| Betty Rogers Large |
When Dad was posted to Halifax in 1914, I was barely a year
old. My sister Marianne was born there in October 1917, about six weeks before
the tragic Halifax explosion. To help with the house Dad hired a maid, a girl
named Sylvia Publicover who came from a place with the strange old name of Ecum
Secum. We had an apartment within walking distance of the Citadel on Williams
Street, which meant Dad could live at home when he was not on duty.
At that
time the Citadel was a military intelligence center so it is difficult to
ascertain precisely what Dad's duties were there I know from his papers that he
continued his research and experimentation in wireless. From a receiving
apparatus of his own construction, he was able to pull in, directly from Berlin
and Paris, official communiques of the German and French general staffs. These
were logged daily, and the information was forwarded to Ottawa. So it seems,
through the years 1915-17, he was involved in some sort of wireless
surveillance—probably one of the earliest forms of electronic surveillance in
the history of warfare.
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| Keith S. Rogers - 1911 at Camp Petawawa |
His routine duty at the Citadel was the maintenance of
communications by visual telegraph—lamps and flags—and wireless telegraph with
the various units comprising the fortress. During this period he was also
seconded to the Royal School of Infantry and the Royal School of Artillery to
train wireless operators. At age 23, he was promoted to Captain and placed in
charge of all communications including the military telephone system. Each year
he applied for overseas service, but his applications were turned down—much I'm
sure to my Mother's relief—on the grounds of necessity for his service in
Canada.
I was too young to have any conscious memories of Halifax; but the
story of what happened when it was devastated by the explosion caused by the
collision of two munition ships, the Imo and the Mont Blanc, has been told so
often, it seems as if I actually do remember it—so I'll tell it that way.
It
started just like any ordinary day. We were sitting around the breakfast table.
Mother always said that if Dad had not had such quick reflexes, all of us,
except baby Marianne, would have been killed. We had large dining-room windows,
and as we looked out, we could see the man next door up on a ladder fixing his
house. Suddenly, there was an awesome feeling of danger as an ominous swishing
noise filled the air.
"Under the table!" my father roared, grabbing me
and throwing me to the floor. Sylvia, the maid, flung herself across Marianne's
bassinet. As we huddled there pressed to the floor a shower of glass flew over
us, embedding itself in the far wall. Shards of it had to be taken out of poor
Sylvia's back. I still carry the scar where it cut my knee. The man next door
was blown off his ladder, his body found over in the next street.
Dad reported
immediately to the Citadel, but before he went he took us to the Commons where
the military was erecting a sort of tent city to house the thousands of fleeing homeless. We spent the night there in the open because there was fear of a
second explosion. Outside, it was bitter cold; and to add to the misery, there
was a heavy snowfall throughout the night which turned into a blizzard the next
day.
Death, fear, and pain were everywhere as thousands of victims lay in long
rows at the hospitals and receiving stations waiting their turn to be attended
or pronounced dead. Dad said people reacted quickly and courageously. Military
and naval units organized search and rescue parties. Firemen fought desperately
to bring raging fires under control. Doctors and nurses were operating as soon
as schools, halls, churches and private homes could be set up as temporary
hospitals. Special trains were arranged to bring help from the United States
and the rest of Canada.
Immediately the news of the explosion reached the Island,
Grandfather "W.K.", who was chairman of the PEI Hospital Board, organized
a team of doctors and nurses and a cavalcade of cars to go to Halifax. All the
Island roads were blocked with snow. Undeterred, they drove the cars along the
railroad tracks. When he arrived at the stricken city, Grandfather went
straight to our home, stuck his head in at the door and called out, "Is
everyone alive and well?" Satisfied we were, he left at once for the Red
Cross Headquarters.
Those people with friends or relatives elsewhere who could
take them in were evacuated from the city. Mother, Marianne and I were sent
home along with many others on the Borden train. When we landed at the station
in Charlottetown, men walked ahead of us on the platform calling to the crowds,
"Make way for the Halifax refugees!" We remained on the Island for the
duration of the war.
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| W K Rogers |
