A Bolt From The Blue

The year is 1917 on a cold snowbound scenario in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The time is 9am and many folks were either getting ready for another working day or still in bed. The snowbound scenery was soon to become blood begrimed as two ammunition ships collided in the Harbor of Halifax and Dartmouth. Almost two thousand lives were lost on that fateful day and thousands were blinded by flying glass as they ran to office windows wondering if the war had come to them.

This is the story of a young man, aged only fifteen, who goes from a boy to a man in almost a day as he struggles to save the many lives consisting of many school children who had just began the day. Unknown. To John, all his family perish in the explosion. As dirt mingled with blood, his hands dug continually as he listened for voices crying out for help. Tirelessly he could be seen dragging bodies towards every growing pile along with others. This story is of course fiction woven around the true story using fictional characters throughout to avoid reviving memories for living relatives. This is essentially John's story, a story of heroism and courage we can only admire. A red-letter day it was called in the local papers, and without help from their local neighbors in Boston who supplied medicine and doctors as the injured piled up along with the dead. A story that should never be forgotten.