The Halifax Incident

March 6, 1916 was a fateful day in late winter when a ship carrying more than 1,000 British West Indian volunteers set sail for England. Their journey would take a tragic turn in the days ahead, and could have become a small footnote in the history of the war if not for the research efforts of professor Hyacinth Simpson.

Over the past three years, the English professor has travelled to Canada’s east coast, Jamaica and England to piece together the story of what happened when the ship arrived in Halifax. Her curiosity was sparked by the memory of a neighbour in Jamaica who was a veteran. She wondered why more people didn’t know about the war experience of men like him.

Then, after visiting Scotland in 2014 and observing the documentation of their World War I stories, Simpson decided to do some research. “All over Edinburgh there were exhibitions and installations and other memory projects. They had uncovered old photographs, family histories, and other records and that’s when it hit me: Where were our [Jamaicans’] stories? Why weren’t they being told?” says Simpson, whose research focuses on the Caribbean and its diasporas.

Her research led her to what has been dubbed ‘The Halifax Incident.’ Now three years later, she has assembled a wealth of archival materials that give a full account of that incident; and she has been sharing this story with audiences in Canada, Jamaica and England.

More than 15,000 British West Indians served during World War I. Unfortunately British West Indians often travelled, lived, and worked in conditions that were sub-standard even for war time, and experienced non-combat fatalities that could have been easily prevented.

One tragic example, Simpson says, involved the 1,140 men on the SS Verdala headed from Kingston, Jamaica, to England for additional training. The British Admiralty had instructed the ship’s captain to divert the boat to Halifax before sailing to England. But instead of outfitting the men, personnel in the War Office in London failed to provide the necessities for a journey through a cold Canadian city, such as appropriate warm socks and coats. As well, the Verdala was an old cargo ship open on all sides, which meant that the men were readily exposed to the elements and yet the ship only had one warming stove—which was placed in the small sitting room reserved for the white officers’ use.

A perfect storm

When the ship approached Halifax Harbour almost two weeks later, the city was in the grip of one of the worst blizzards its residents had ever seen.

“It was a perfect storm,” says Simpson. “Everything came together to create an awful, tragic situation.”

With no heating on board the ship, no running water (the pipes had frozen over) and insufficient clothing, over the next few days approximately 600 men – more than half of the contingent – developed frostbite. Just over 100 of these men were so severely frostbitten that they required immediate medical attention.

The situation was urgent, but rescue efforts were hampered because naval authorities in Halifax had not received notice from the British Admiralty to expect the Verdala. The men were not allowed to disembark while the naval yard, through Ottawa, desperately sought directions from the British. It fell to the Canadians to respond to the crisis.

The 106 men with the most severe cases of frostbite (gangrene had begun to set in) were taken off the ship to get medical treatment in Halifax. The others had to remain on board, but their suffering was alleviated somewhat when Canadian soldiers who were waiting in the Harbour for their own transports helped outfit the Verdala with warming stoves. The women in the Nova Scotia Red Cross Society also helped by providing the stranded men with warm, dry socks.

The British eventually responded, telling Canadian authorities to redirect the Verdala to the warmer shores of Bermuda. That second leg of the contingent’s journey resulted in the death of 7 of their numbers. A few weeks later, nearly 200 more men were deemed unfit to serve because their health had been compromised by the events in Halifax. They were sent back to Jamaica for discharge. Later the British sent another (this time heated) ship to take the remaining men to England and what was left of the contingent went on to serve as part of a labour battalion in Egypt for a short time before being sent to France to work in the ammunitions dump.

Pilot project in prosthetics

What happened to the men who stayed in Halifax reveals a lot about war-time relations between Canadians and Jamaicans. Some of the injured had their lower limbs amputated while others had toes and other parts of their feet removed. Over the spring and summer months as the men healed sufficiently to travel, they returned to Jamaica to be formally discharged from service—with the exception of 17 men who stayed to become part of a pilot project under the auspices of the Canadian Military Hospitals Commission working in conjunction with the Nova Scotia Technical College.

During their stay in Halifax, the men were fitted with artificial limbs fashioned for the first time in Canada in the newly created Dominion Artificial Limb Institute in Toronto. They also received vocational training from instructors affiliated with the college.  

With many wounded Canadian soldiers expected to return from the front lines in 1917, the made-in-Canada solution for creating prosthetics was critical, and these 17 men played a very important role, says Simpson.

“The presence of these Jamaican men had a significant impact on how Canada was able to support wounded troops and help them regain use of their ravaged bodies. Those 17 Jamaicans also played an important role in the Military Hospital Commission’s larger plan to support vocational training programs in military convalescent homes to help veterans successfully transition back into civilian life and not be dependent on the state. That was the start of the contemporary career training programs that provide so many opportunities for Canadian servicemen and women today.”

Simpson also says that the country of Jamaica had to agree to the men’s participation in the pilot project and collaborate with the Canadians in its execution.

“The story of these Black Jamaican amputees shows a then-unprecedented military collaboration between Canada and Jamaica. When we think of war stories, we never think of those borders of military care that can extend beyond a large country like Canada to reach a small Caribbean island.”

Simpson is now finding out more about the small Black community in Halifax (some of whom had West Indian connections) that supported the servicemen who stayed behind in the city to recover.

Simpson will give a talk on the ‘Halifax Incident’ and her research tonight in Halifax as part of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society’s annual public lecture series (external link) .