Nova Scotia (44 page)

   
Watt says, “Many of the newcomers were sick of combing the
slums looking for a place to live, tired of eating bad food in bad
restaurants, fed up with being exploited by landlords.” As in the
early days of the city, profiteers were everywhere, trying to sell
just about everything at inflated prices to the servicemen and
other newcomers. There was good money to be made by taking
advantage of a bad situation. Aside from the hucksters angd con
artists, it seems that almost everybody was cranky about the
pressure-cooker life in Halifax. Haligonians saw the loss of
whatever dignity the city had held onto through the Depression. New
arrivals blamed Halifax folks for being so uncaring. There was
anger and tension in the air.

   
Despite the unifying factor of the war, divisive attitudes
prevailed in Halifax. Upper-Canadian snobbery clashed with
down-home self-defence and fights broke out. Canadians from away,
called “foreigners” by some people lin town, didn’t like being
ripped off by locals making a buck off the war, but these locals
who had been living quietly but poorly through the Twenties and
Thirties now felt invaded and, even worse, unappreciated for their
sacrifices in the war effort.

Three Close Calls

Despite the fact that much of
Halifax had already been levelled by a major explosion in the First
World War, all things considered, it was pretty lucky in avoiding
such a disaster this time around. Three “near misses” prove that
point.

   
On April 9, 1942, the British ship
Trongate
caught fire in the harbour. In her hold were TNT,
shells, casings and ammunition. The harbour was bumper to bumper
with 200 ships, including ten U.S. Navy vessels and four carriers
of U.S. troops. The minesweeper
Chedabucto
was
ordered to fire four-inch shells filled with sand at the waterline
of the
Trongate
to sink her.

   
Another ship fire broke out in Bedford Basin in
November of 1943 aboard the U.S. freighter
Volunteer
. She
was loaded with dynamite, depth charges, magnesium, ammunition and
bales of tobacco. While the captain and officers drank and played
cards, a fire broke out and burned for two hours before word was
received at the Port Defence Office. Most of the crew abandoned
ship and those who were left with the drunk captain protested when
their ship was boarded by firemen. Commander Owen Robertson and his
fire party realized that the decks were getting red-hot from the
fire below and expected the ship to blow them all to kingdom come.
They valiantly attempted to use the tobacco bales to shield the
volatile magnesium barrels from igniting and then they cut holes
into the decks to release the explosive gases which had to be
ignited with a rifle shot. (Does this all sound like a crazy scheme
to anyone?)

   
The release of volatile fumes was a success of
sorts, sending flames shooting forty feet into the air rather than
blowing up the entire ship. Robertson and his men had been hiding
behind those tobacco bales at the time iand got off easy. They were
only knocked senseless for a mere ten minutes. When he returned to
consciousness, Robertson beached the still-burning ship on McNab’s
Island, while fireboats continued to pump water on the vessel.
There Robertson’s men managed to open the seacocks and sink the
ill-fated
Volunteer
and thus avert
disaster.

The third of the major accidents
took place on land, at the Bedford Magazine on July 18, 1945, in
the Burnside area north of Dartmouth. The five-kilometre-long
arsenal compound was a storehouse and transfer point for all manner
of explosive cargo and ammunition. When a barge exploded at 6:30
p.m., it set off a series of other blasts along the shoreline. One
after another, the blasts could be heard into the night and there
was fear that the entire facility might soon go up in one
horrendous burst.

   
Dartmouth was evacuated, as was the North End of Halifax,
where people fled once again to the relative security of Citadel
Hill and the Wanderers’ Grounds, where baseball games continued
despite warnings of impending doom. Ships in the harbour were moved
out of harm’s way as far as possible. The force of several of the
explosions did structural damage to buildings on both sides of the
harbour, but fortunately there was no single cataclysmic blast as
in 1917.

An Emotional Powder Keg

During the war, ships travelled in
convoys out of Halifax with supplies for the war in Europe. Along
with the troop ships and warships went merchant marine vessels with
food, oil and munitions. The first convoy left Halifax before war
was actually declared. Eighteen ships, escorted by British cruisers
and Canadian destroyers, headed out in the late summer of 1939.
Convoys of the older and slower vessels would also head off from
Sydney in Cape Breton.

   
Merchant seamen often felt they were never given the credit
they deserved in the war effort. They were sometimes called
“zombies,” as if to say they were able-bodied men who were avoiding
war duty, sometimes even receiving a white feather – a symbol of
cowardice – as a gift from a snooty Haligonian. After the war,
merchant seamen who risked their lives in crossing the Atlantic
were never afforded the benefits that went to military men. Onl*y
recently have these men been honoured for their part in helping to
win World War II. In 1998, fifty-three years after the end of the
war, the Canadian government granted merchant navy seamen full
veteran status so they were eligible for various
benefits.

   
Along with all the dangers in Europe, at sea, or even at rest
in a floating time bomb in the harbour, there was plenty of trouble
ashore. Squabbles broke out frequently between servicemen and
townspeople. There were con.flicts between merchant and naval
seamen as well, and between regular navy and naval reserves. To
complement the fever of war, Halifax was an emotional powder keg
waiting for the appropriate match.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39

The Kronprinzen Affair

The
war had a trickle-down effect on much of the province, sometimes
leading to profit, sometimes pain and sometimes to an exercise in
sheer absurdity as illustrated by the following. Attack by U-boats
off the coast was9 an ever-present danger for any manner of ship
sailing off the coast of Nova Scotia. In July of 1942, a brand
spanking new Norwegian ship, the
Kronprinzen
, was part
of a convoy headed from New York to Halifax on its way to Britain.
Not much more than 160 kilometres off the coast of Yarmouth, it was
hit by two German torpedoes, with one hole reported as being “large
enough for a trawl dory to row through.” On board was al cargo of
flour, 4,000 tons of steel and cotton bales. Convoy veteran Captain
Jorgens was a tough nut to crack and refused to abandon ship and
lose the cargo. He called for four tugs, two from Halifax and two
from Boston, to come to his rescue as his men worked the pumps and
struggled to keep the ship afloat as she lumbered 160 kilometres to
a beach at Lower East Pubnico.

   
Jorgens was shocked to discover that the locals there wanted
a fee of sixty cents an hour to help unload the goods. The captain
thought this was an outrage and would report that “They all want to
get rich off this one job.” Even in those days, sixty cents an hour
would not have led to wealth but obviously there was some bad blood
between the staunch captain and those people of Pubnico living
pretty close to the poverty line. Jorgens decided they couldn’t
salvage the flour but refused to give it or even sell it to the
locals, so he had his men dump it into the sea – which, of course,
seems somewhat illogical, given the trouble they were going to in
order to save the cargo. It turned out that Jorgens was just
following the orders of the war machine that had decreed such goods
could never be used for civilian purposes under any circumstances.
The RCMP was brought in to use water hoses to keep everyone away so
they could properly dispose of the flour by sinking it. The
poverty-stricken but feisty Pubnicans, however, would not relent in
this battle for food. They rowed out in their dories, scooped up
the bales as they floated by and spirited them away, despite the
presence of the Mounties and their water cannons. One wonders what
a German U-boat captain would have made of this scene had he been
close enough to view it through his periscope. Years later, South
Shore writer Evelyn Richardson wrote the tale of this event and
noted how such bags of flour would often turn up for sale or
circulate for free along the coast that year.

   
The
Kronprinzen
episode
was only one of many that illustrate a low government regard for
the people of rural Nova Scotia in and out of war. The ship itself
was towed off to Halifax, then New York and sailed
again.

Just Thirsty

Despite its role as a city “in the
war zone,” Halifax never sustained all-out catastrophe or invasion
during World War II – that is, not until the war in Europe ended in
May of 1945. On the seventh and eighth of that month, Halifax was
ripped apart by the Canadian military. It would be known as the VE
Day Rriot, part celebration, part outrageous attack upon the city
that had been a not-so-hospitable home for men going to and from
war.

   
Five million dollars in damage was the price tag. Three
people died in the battle and 211 were arrested. More than 500
businesses were looted. Police cars and streetcars were burned or
smashed. Liquor store windo*ws were shattered and the shelves were
cleaned out. Up against the rioting soldiers and sailors (and
whoever else cared to take advantage of the situation) were 540
Halifax policemen, 169 army police, 74 air force personnel, 168
navy shore patrolmen and 43 RCMP. *

   
Earlier that year, Admiral Leonard Murray had spoken of a
plan for celebrations should the war be over in Europe and, by
April, the Halifax North Civic Association asked the city to gear
up for the possibility of a big bulowout if the war ended. Mayor
Allan Butler asked the eleven theatres to stay open, but they all
wanted to be closed tight when the day arrived. Of the fifty-five
restaurants in town, only sixteen were open on May 7 and all but a
handful were closed by the next day. There was no place in town for
most men to eat. Edna Hobin remembers her mother answering the door
to three polite sailors offering to pay for a meal. She fed them
corned beef and cabbage but refused their money. Other servicemen
were not so lucky or not so polite. Many must have been outraged
that “they” had just won a war and the city of Halifax wasn’t even
willing to give them a place to buy a meal.

   
Rumours had been circulating that once the war was over, the
men would have revenge on Halifax for all its shortcomings. Poor
old Halifax would take a beating for all of Ottawa’s lack of
concern and the bureaucratic bungling that went hand in hand with
it. As novelist Hugh Garner puts it, “Though everyone in authority
knew it was coming, little was done to prevent the crisis brewing.”
*

   
Edna Hobin remembers watching “hundreds” of navy and civilian
men carrying cases of liquor, although she remembers them as being
“non-threatening,” just thirsty.

   
Things started to get weird on the night of May 7 when the
bar at Stadacona closed at 9 p.m. Men poured out of there, boarded
streetcars and went downtown – destination: the liquor stores on
Hollis and Sackville streets. Nobody was buying. A couple of dozen
men just went in and came back, handing out cases to the crowds.
Confrontations were few and there was little in the newspaper the
next morning except the good news of the end to war in Europe. VE
Day was announced.

   
Official celebrations were scheduled to take place in
churches and there would be a parade to the Garrison Grounds. In
fact, much polite and political ceremony would go on as scheduled,
with participants unaware that Baÿrrington Street was being
ransacked.

   
Admiral Murray believed it would have been unfair to allow
civilians to celebrate and not servicemen. He had a good point. But
meanwhile, back at the bar at Stadacona, refreshment had run out by
one o’clock on the afternoon of the eighth. A little rowdiness
followed and before long, 2,000 men were pouring out onto North
Barrington Street and headed downtown. Streetcars were again
commandeered.

   “
The mob filled the street from one side to the other,
breaking the windows of seventy houses as they passed,” Hugh Garner
remembers. At least 4,000 men, thirsty for a little brew, directed
their attentions to Kÿeith’s Brewery on Hollis Street. Victor Oland
remembers his father (who owned the brewery) helping to hand out
cases of beer as soon as he realized what was underway. Once all
the bottles were given away, he says, “They departed without
causing any damage.”

“Just High Spirits” or “Just Like
Animals”?

Conflicting views about the
animosity still abound. Edna Hobin remembers it as a good-natured
crowd. Bruce Jefferson thought it all “just high spirits.” Charles
Sweeny, on the other hand, saw an uncontrollable mob, “just like
animals.” There were amusing anecdotes but also stories of theft,
massive destruction and rape.