Jack (if I may be so informal), the book I referenced in the OP discussed this in some detail, the accident legally was the fault of the ship not carrying explosives, there is little doubt on that, but the explosives ship was French and the crew abandoned it and made little if any effort to warn authorities that it was carrying explosives, so feelings after the explosion were rather high against them. Add in a showboating attorney and a Judge who may have been less than impartial and…
the curse of the narrows is the book i have.
the description of the eye surgeries, hour after hour after hour, is harrowing.
i’ve been to the halifax museum, it is well done and very worth a visit.
Wikipedia’s description makes it plain that the outbound Norwegian ship was at fault for the collision, since they were out of their lane, refusing to return to it or to rightfully yield to Mont-Blanc, and speeding. But Mont-Blanc was loaded criminally poorly, with unsecured barrels of aircraft fuel rattling around waiting to be knocked over and poured out when the two ships finally sideswiped each other. And Mont-Blanc’s crew skedaddled rather make any attempt at firefighting or damage control, leaving an abandoned fireship to drift into the pier.
No one involved in the initial collison covered themselves in glory that day.
The Feb. 2018 issue of Naval History magazine has a short review of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, in Halifax, “perhaps the most powerful exhibit” of which is about the explosion: https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/
Just came across a copy of the September 2017 issue of Smithsonian magazine, which includes an interesting article, “Fire on the Water,” about a recently-discovered contemporary account of the explosion.
My maternal grandmother suffered cuts from flying glass in the explosion.
Just came across a review of this book in the June 2018 issue of Naval History: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Halifax-Explosion-Treachery-Extraordinary/dp/0062666533/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530905913&sr=1-1&keywords=the+great+halifax+explosion+by+john+u.+bacon. The reviewer said it’s “an excellent case study in disaster management and humanitarian leadership.”
There have been a lot of big badda-booms besides Halifax. USS Mount Hood is notable, as is the Oppau ammonia plant explosion in 1921. USS Mount Hood (AE-11) - Wikipedia Oppau explosion - Wikipedia. Mount Hood is probably the closest, with this description of the aftermath,
Port Chicago should probably be mentioned as well. Port Chicago disaster - Wikipedia Loading ordnance can be dangerous.
Fauld was in November, and Trinity wasn’t until the following July. so by the normal measure Fauld was “before the start of the nuclear age”.
I think Halifax hasn’t been the largest ever non-nuclear explosion for a while, but that wasn’t the claim.