Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1917 — Halifax Scenes Worse Than Those Of Battlefield, Says Soldier [ARTICLE]

Halifax Scenes Worse Than Those Of Battlefield, Says Soldier

St. Johns, N. 8., Dec. 7.—Persons arriving here on steamships from Halifax today added to the story of death and suffering. Thomas Trainor, a pilot, said that 1,600 bodies had been recovered.He had seen several steamers in the harbor that had been damaged and said that the number of seamen killed was large. C. H. Frizzel reported having seen forty charred in Campbell road. While walking from Halifax to Needham he counted lb 9 bodies scattered in the field. He said he saw a woman strolling, apparently dazed, along the railroad track. With one hand she led a small child. On the other arm she bore the headless body of an infant. Another arrival said that in school at Richmond two hundred children had met death. R. G. Marsh reported having seen a mother standing in the street calling for help that was not to be had for her husband and four children, imprisoned in their burning home. It was impossible even to approach the house. In another house to which he made his way in an effort to be of aid, Marsh found four bodies piled one on the other by a freak of the explosion. The battlefields of Europe do not provide a paralleled to scenes witnessed at Halifax, in the opinion of Duncan Grey, who arrived here today. He was engaged in inspecting shells in a shed on the»water front when the devastation began and barely 1 escaped before the building collapsed. This is his story: “A few seconds after the roar of the explosion a gust of wipd swept through the shed and then down came pillars, boards and beams. I rushed to the open and the sight that met my gaze was the worst that I hope ever to see. “I have been in the trenches in France. I have gone ‘over the top.’ Friends and comrades have been shot in my presence. I have seen scores of dead men lying upon the battlefield, but the sight that greeted me yesterday was a thousands times worse. “I saw people under timbers, stones, and other debris; some battered beyond recognition and others groaning in their last agonies. x “Rushing here and there, I struggled to assist them, as nearly as I can remember, pulled twenty-two men and children from under the wreckage. As I was rgiht in the affected district I witnessed the full horror of the situation. Partly blinded by the smoke from burning dwellings, I propped around assisting some of the poor mothers and little ones who were running about scream ing and searching vainly for lost ones, in many instances never to be seen by them'again. “I struggled on, coming across more and more bodies of dead men, women and children. Death was everywhere. Flames were sweeping a wide pathway for themselves. Doomed structures were belching forth great volumes of smoke from doors and windows. The district was a living hell. “Half strangled by the smoke, I kept polling out bodies from under beams and fallen chimneys and under wreckage. Some of the bodies were without, clothing. Many were so mutilated that it was difficult to realize that they were human. Some men were virtually demented. Thinking only of their wives and children, they dashed about in the burning debris hazarding their lives with the single thought of rescuing their own. < “I shall never forget how I felt in that hour. I saw little children running along, some with blood streaming from their faces. All were crying for their parents, while fathers and raced baout in frenzy. I have never seen anything so pathetic even on the battlefield.” Right Rev. IJ. A. „ Leßlanc, the Catholic bishop here, today received word that all the children of the Sacred Heart convent and St. Mary’s school in Halifax escaped.