Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion

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Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion is a two-part miniseries produced in 2003 by CBC Television. It presents a fictionalized version of the Halifax Explosion, a 1917 catastrophe that destroyed much of the city of Halifax. It was drected by Bruce Pittman and written by Keith Ross Leckie.

The plot takes numerous liberties with historical truth. Significant deviations include:[1]

  • The addition of a major subplot featuring German spies in Halifax (the Germans conducted no significant espionage activities anywhere in North America during the war).
  • The movie does not convey the tsunami which followed directly after the explosion.
  • A conspiracy that frees the captain of Mont Blanc and the naval commander Frederick Wyatt leaving Mont Blanc's pilot, Francis Mackey, as the fall guy for the explosion. In fact, Wyatt was the only person sent to trial for the explosion and was subsequently acquitted by a jury of Halifax citizens.
  • Commander Wyatt is depicted as a British officer (he was Canadian) and is shown pushing for relaxed regulation of ammunition handling (he actually argued for stricter regulation) and refusing to approach the burning Mont Blanc (he was in fact on board a harbor tug directing firefighting operations when the explosion occurred). Similarly, captain Le Medec is depicted as a coward who was first to abandon his ship when in fact he was the last to leave it.
  • In the aftermath of the explosion the film depicts only minimal emergency relief capability until American assistance arrives by train, when in fact there were ample Canadian resources available and the first American aid didn't arrive until two days afterward.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Conlin, Dan. Historical Distortions and Errors in the Film Shattered City. Retrieved on December 15, 2006.

[edit] External links