| Show 10 adventurers club t city of death by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter ALL ALL during the world war anita johnson of lynn expected to 1 1 be blown up by a bomb in those days she lived in halifax nova scotia that of course is up canada way and from 1914 right through to the armistice the folks up there took precautions against air raids and attacks by the germans at night no lights were allowed to face the harbor the harbor was patrolled by boats day and night anita was just a kid then she know what all those precautions were for exactly but she sort of understood that one day the german airplanes would come flying over the atlantic and start showering bombs on the city but nothing even remotely resembling an air raid happened in halifax until december 6 1917 then something happened that was worse than a hundred air raids the great halifax explosion you remember what happened then you remember how two ships collided in the harbor how one of them was loaded to the gunnels with ammunition that exploded and almost wrecked the whole town the great greaf halifax explosion was one of the notable disasters of the century and anita was right where the big blast did some of its worst damage anita was ten years old when it happened and she was in school when the big french munitions ship let go with a roar that was heard round the world we had just been in in our class rooms for five minutes she says when 1 suddenly we heard beard a series of noises I 1 remember looking towa toward rd a window and thinking that a car must have backfired back fired outside but it take long to find out that it ft was no car what anita had heard was just a couple of little explosions that set off the big one the real blast sound like an explosion to her at all teacher knew what was comin coming anita may have thought those sounds were the backfiring of a car but her teacher fooled she seemed to sense what was com coming i ng and told the children put your heads down on your desks those kids did as they were told then it camel not a loud report those kids were too near it to hear the blast for the schoolhouse was on a hill not five minutes walk from the harbor but all of a sudden it seemed as if the whole world were crashing down on them AND ANITA well suppose we let her tell you herself how she felt at that age she says my mind was of course full of war I 1 had bad my own ideas about air raids so as my head bead lay on tho the desk my eyes tightly closed I 1 felt myself Jr traveling aveling skyward as I 1 expected a bomb should send me 1 I kept traveling up and up until it seemed there must be something wrong with my means of transportation after all a bomb could only send me so far and I 1 should be coming I 1 ng back by now I 1 was positive I 1 would be killed when I 1 landed and I 1 could see no reason to prolong the agony so I 1 decided to investigate 1 I opened my eyes and saw the floor now that floor supposed to have followed me so I 1 realized that I 1 up in the air at all 1 I even moved AND I 1 MOVE there were so many things on top of me I 1 heard some yelling and I 1 yelled too but that help any so I 1 waited most of them were dead or disabled anita know how long she waited time mean a thing to her she was so dazed by the shock that she feel any pain it until later that she even realized she was hurt but she sat at her desk until some soldiers came into the room and pulled her out of it luckily I 1 was able to walk she says there were only five or six of us who could then anita sag started arted making her way out of the school building we managed to climb and crawl over things that blocked the haus halls she says the stairs were all gone but there was enough debris piled up where they had been to take their place we slid and crawled down those piles and finally got outside 1 I stayed there at the school for quite a while too dazed to do anything else all I 1 could see around me was fire the soldiers kept bringing other girls out of the school building some of them were dead others so injured that they be recognized other buildings were down all around us it take us long to find out what had happened after I 1 had been there for ten or fifteen minutes I 1 saw my sister coming out anita waited for her sister to come up but sister walked right up to her walked right on past her and even notice her anita was covered with blood anita called to her and she came back and only then did anita learn earn that she was just as unrecognizable as somo some of those other injured kids she had been pitying HER FACE TIER HER CLOTHING HER WHOLE BODY BOD F ALL OF THEM WERE COVERED WITH BLOOD together she and sister started for home they walked around wreckage dodged live electric wires and stepped over dead bodies by the score and when they arrived at their home they found it just another wreck like the schoolhouse and all the other buildings in the neighborhood anitas head was full of bits of glass but she managed to have it all taken out except for one piece which she says she thinks the doctor teft left there for a souvenir she has a few fancy scars too but nothing to what she might have had and she says 1 I have still to find out what it feels like to be blown up in the air by a bomb 0 service sr vic |
