James Claes says he wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for his mom’s actions minutes before the Halifax Explosion on Dec. 6, 1917.
“My mother saved me and my brother,” recalled the 101-year-old man in a phone interview on the 101-year anniversary.
“She heard a siren go off, and took us down to the basement.”
Three-month-old Claes, his older brother and mom waited in the basement in their north-end home until after the explosion.
“Then the whole house fell,” said Claes, but all three survived.
“She happened to get some sort of a basket to put me in, because I was so young, and dragged us and my grandmother down to the Commons.”
Claes said his father was working on a submarine outside Halifax Harbour at the time of the blast.
“When he arrived at the house on Maynard Street, of course the house was gone, and he figured we had all been killed,” he said.
Claes’ dad flagged down a man, who was bandaged up, and asked if he had seen anyone.
“He said, ‘I saw a woman with a couple of boys and another person heading towards the Commons,’ and that’s where he found us,” said the 101-year-old.
Claes and his family stayed at the Halifax Commons until they rebuilt their house about six months later.
While Claes was too young to remember what happened, he said he “still remembers all the tales” and keeps a drawer full of articles related to the explosion.
The 101-year-old man, who now lives in Florida, last visited Halifax about nine years ago for the anniversary.
Claes believes he’s not the only survivor. Although he hasn’t talked to them in years, he thinks there are two women still alive who also survived the Halifax Explosion.
