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We have never forgotten and were

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A towering Christmas tree from Canada stands on Boston Common. It was lit Thursday night with great fanfare, including fireworks, Santa and song.

The Boston tradition always brings good cheer. That's in stark relief to the catastrophic accident 400 miles away that is at the root of the tree ceremony.

On December 6, 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, two ships collided in the harbor. The crash sparked the largest man-made explosion until the atomic bomb. Two-thousand people were killed, 9,000 others were wounded.

In his new book, " The Great Halifax Explosion," author John U. Bacon has tracked the disaster in Halifax a century ago to the celebratory annual tree lighting in Boston.

"Within one hour of getting the news about this explosion, without being asked, [Massachusetts] Governor [Samuel] McCall - whose lieutenant governor was a guy named Calvin Coolidge - they gathered in Faneuil Hall," explained Bacon, "and within an hour, a hundred city leaders put together a committee - the Massachusetts-Halifax Relief Committee. And they sent two trains, two ships, 100 doctors, 300 nurses, $1 million worth of supplies, cars with gas and chauffeurs ... enough to run several temporary hospitals. And this saved countless lives."

To set the scene of the disaster, World War I had reached its crescendo overseas. The Allies were sending over high explosives. The French freighter Mont-Blanc had stopped in New York. There, it was carefully packed with dynamite, TNT and a poisonous chemical to put in shells aimed at the Germans.

Bacon said the ship and cargo weighed about 6 million pounds - 13 times the weight of the Statue of Liberty. He spoke with WBUR's All Things Considered host, Lisa Mullins.
On the disaster:

The timing [of the ship accident and explosion] is cruel. It's 8:46 in the morning. School kids, guys going to offices and factories, they all stop and watch this thing burn. And they go, 'Ooh' and 'Ah,' having no idea what's going to happen next. The temperature of the hold of Mont-Blanc skyrockets to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's six times hotter than molten lava. At the same time, of course, it expands in all directions at 3,400 miles per hour. That's four times the speed of sound. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the architect of the A-bomb, calculated correctly that the Mont-Blanc explosion was one-third to one-fifth as powerful as the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima. The ship itself basically disintegrates and becomes a two-mile-high mushroom cloud ... Next comes a 35-foot tsunami, because the pressure also went down. You could see the sea floor briefly, and that creates a 35-foot tidal wave that hits the shore of Halifax. If you survived the first two things, this would pull you back into the harbor and drown you.
On the generosity of Massachusetts:

Your governor and your Boston mayor at the time had planned for World War I in a way that no other city in North America did. They knew that something might happen in Boston Harbor. If it did, they had to have people lined up - doctors, nurses, material supplies. So they sent all these materials, all these people, all these trained professionals - including welders and glaziers to put window panes back in the windows ... And when they packed the ships in Boston Harbor, they announced this through the newspapers, and there was a throng that came down to drop off things themselves. A high-society lady pulls off her fur coat and puts it on top of the pile. And they cheer the ship as it goes to Halifax. That generosity, by the way, was never, ever forgotten.

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Generosity Never Forgotten: Author Traces 'Great Halifax Explosion' And How Boston Stepped Up

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A towering Christmas tree from Canada stands on Boston Common. It was lit Thursday night with great fanfare, including fireworks, Santa and song. The Boston tradition always brings good cheer. That's in stark relief to the catastrophic accident 400 miles away that is at the root of the tree ceremony.

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Most Canadians and Americans familiar with the Halifax Explosion probably know about the relief train that was sent here from Boston.

A blizzard following the Dec. 6, 1917, blast delayed Massachusetts's unsolicited response by rail, a large emergency effort aimed at a small city that saw its north end flattened following the collision of two ships, including a munitions vessel, in Halifax Harbour.

The train headed up to Nova Scotia carrying medical supplies and other goods, American Red Cross representatives, surgeons, additional doctors and nurses. Specialists included an anesthetist and ophthalmologist dispatched to help treat a myriad of eye injuries.

What many on both sides of the border may not realize, is aid continued to flow to Halifax from the people of Massachusetts after the relief train, which was also hampered by a broken-down engine, arrived on Dec. 8.

Once grim news of the tragedy had reached Boston, municipal and state leaders of the day mobilized. An article in Boston Magazine in 2015 said overall, the state of Massachusetts donated more than $750,000.

The arts community responded and did what it could, too: the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed a benefit concert for Halifax in the days following the catastrophe, Brian Douglas Tennyson says in his 2015 book, Canada's Great War, 1914-1918.

Tennyson's book says responses to the disaster from the Boston region and beyond, included these: Harvard University transported "a complete hospital unit" to Halifax, Maine "sent 110 doctors, plus nurses and other volunteers" and other emergency response trains "began arriving from . . . Philadelphia, and Washington."

It was the worst of times and help was desperately needed. About 2,000 people were killed in the explosion, which took place one clear morning in a key Canadian port during the dark days of the First World War. Some 1,600 homes were levelled and scores of residents were injured.

Turtle Grove, the small Mi'kmaw community on the Dartmouth side of the harbour, was blasted during the disaster; inhabitants were killed there but most survived. Back in Halifax, much of the city was in ruins.

"The town was literally ablaze, the dry dock and dockyard buildings completely demolished and everywhere wounded and dead," Frank Baker, a Royal Navy sailor, wrote in his diary, according to a Smithsonian Magazine story published last July.

"The theatres and suitable buildings were all turned into hospitals or shelters for the accommodation of the homeless," he said in his journal, and military personnel patrolled the streets to keep order.

Blair Beed, in his 1998 book, 1917 Halifax Explosion and American Response, says the train from Massachusetts was not the only mode of transportation used to provide help for Nova Scotia's capital. Supply ships from Boston steamed toward the city, as well, the book says.

"The American response to Halifax was quick, sincere and generous," Beed says in his book.

Abraham C. Ratshesky, the commissioner-in- charge of Massachusetts's Halifax relief expedition, filed a detailed report in 1918 with the state's governor.

The report says shortly after Ratshesky arrived, he was taken to Halifax City Hall.

On the way, "an awful sight presented itself," it says. "Buildings shattered on all sides; chaos apparent; no order existed."

U.S. assistance was crucial but wasn't the earliest to arrive. A website operated by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, notes Truro and other closer communities were able to send relief trains sooner.

The aid from Massachusetts didn't stop precisely a century ago, Tennyson notes in his book.

"Upon (the Americans') return home," he wrote, "many of the people involved in the relief effort formed an organization which they called the Halifax-Massachusetts Relief Associates, which worked with Halifax and the government of Nova Scotia for the next five years to improve the lives of survivors."

Tennyson's book says "the people of Nova Scotia, and particularly Halifax, were astonished and gratified" by the unconditional assistance - swift, well-organized help - given by the Americans 100 years ago.

Mayor Mike Savage told Halifax council recently that Boston Mayor Marty Walsh had hoped to be in Halifax Wednesday for a memorial event. Walsh will be unable to attend, however Boston Commissioner Joe Finn and a team from the city's fire department are expected to be there.

At an event in Boston last week with a delegation from Nova Scotia, Mayor Walsh said, in addition to remembering the terrible tragedy, this year we also celebrate 100 years of friendship between the two cities.

"In a time when we're seeing hostility and tension across the world, we're especially thankful for these friendships," he said. "We set an example for the rest of the world on how we take care of each other, especially in times of need."
Michael Lightstone is a freelance reporter living in Dartmouth

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Halifax Explosion created special bond with Boston

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Most Canadians and Americans familiar with the Halifax Explosion probably know about the relief train that was sent here from Boston. A blizzard following the Dec. 6, 1917, blast delayed Massachusetts's unsolicited response by rail, a large emergency effort aimed at a small city that saw its north end flattened following the collision of two ships, including a munitions vessel, in Halifax Harbour.

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At 9:05 a.m., in the harbor of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurs when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with another vessel.

As World War I raged in Europe, the port city of Halifax bustled with ships carrying troops, relief supplies, and munitions across the Atlantic Ocean. On the morning of December 6, the Norwegian vessel Imo left its mooring in Halifax harbor for New York City. At the same time, the French freighter Mont Blanc, its cargo hold packed with highly explosive munitions-2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 35 tons of high-octane gasoline, and 10 tons of gun cotton-was forging through the harbor's narrows to join a military convoy that would escort it across the Atlantic.

At approximately 8:45 a.m., the two ships collided, setting the picric acid ablaze. The Mont Blanc was propelled toward the shore by its collision with the Imo, and the crew rapidly abandoned the ship, attempting without success to alert the harbor of the peril of the burning ship. Spectators gathered along the waterfront to witness the spectacle of the blazing ship, and minutes later it brushed by a harbor pier, setting it ablaze. The Halifax Fire Department responded quickly and was positioning its engine next to the nearest hydrant when the Mont Blanc exploded at 9:05 a.m. in a blinding white flash.

The massive explosion killed more than 1,800 people, injured another 9,000-including blinding 200-and destroyed almost the entire north end of the city of Halifax, including more than 1,600 homes. The resulting shock wave shattered windows 50 miles away, and the sound of the explosion could be heard hundreds of miles away.

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At 9:05 a.m., in the harbor of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurs when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with another vessel.

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Did you know that the explosion was the largest man made.

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A city destroyed: The Halifax Explosion, 100 years later in 360-degrees

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CBC News Interactives has recreated the city of Halifax as it existed in 1917 to show how the Halifax explosion unfolded and its effects on the people who lived there.