It is time to lift the weight of defamation carried for too long by a man and a family who did not deserve such a burden. It is time to tell Mackey’s truth.
2016 winner of the Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award
On December 6, 1917, Halifax harbour pilot Francis Mackey was guiding Mont-Blanc , a French munitions ship, into Bedford Basin to join a convoy across the Atlantic when it was rammed by Belgian Relief vessel Imo . The resulting massive explosion destroyed Halifax’s north end and left at least two thousand people dead, including pilot William Hayes aboard Imo . Who was to blame? Federal government and naval officials found in Pilot Mackey a convenient target for public anger. Charged with manslaughter, he wa