1Q1AJohn Bacon Halifax

Good Afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is John Bacon author of The Great Halifax explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism, published in November by William Morrow. Mr. Bacon has worked for the past two decades as a writer, public speaker and a college instructor. He has written for NYT and Time magazine. His previous works, primarily dealing in sports, include: Three and Out Fourth and Long End zone The great Halifax Explosion is something that not many of us have heard about although it was the largest conflagration caused by a weapon of mass destruction aside from the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including that hallmark of a mushroom cloud and a shock wave. After having left NY on December 1, 1917, the munitions ship Mont-Blanc, full of three thousand tons of TNT and other even more volatile explosives, made its perilous way from New York up the dangerous waters of the Atlantic Coast, always on the lookout for the accurate and almost ubiquitous German U-boats. Although it escaped storms and U-boats, it did not escape incompetence and enormous risk and, as it approached the port city of Halifax, it exploded with the force of 2.9 Kilotons of TNT-the most powerful explosion ever seen or heard by human beings whose lives were destroyed or ruined, other than, as I remarked, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The ship itself was vaporized in 1/15th of a second. A shockwave leveled the city. But it was what happened afterward that is so astounding. So let’s talk to John about this incredible story.