2 weeks Ago By Craig Wallace
Seventy-five years ago on Sept. 17, 1949, one of the worst tragedies in Great Lakes history occurred, just down the Queen Elizabeth Way from Hamilton. There are people alive today who have vivid memories of this night of horror.
On Sept. 14, the Canadian cruise liner Noronic cast off from its wharf in Detroit Michigan. It was 36 years old, 362 feet long and could carry up to 600 passengers.
It was one of the most beautiful vessels on the Great Lakes, and had been nicknamed the “Queen of the Lakes.” Its furnishings were on par with the finest hotels in the world. It was on a seven-day cruise through lakes Erie and Ontario.
The Noronic stopped in Cleveland, Ohio, to pick up more passengers, bringing her passenger total to 524 (with a crew of 200). On the evening of Sept. 16 the Noronic docked in Toronto Harbour.
Captain William Taylor gave most of the crew the night off so they could go into Toronto and enjoy the sights. Many passengers also disembarked to go into the city for dinner or see a show. By midnight, most of the passengers had returned and gone to bed.
Ominously there were only 15 crew on duty that evening to care for over 500 passengers. The rest of the crew was either still in Toronto or asleep. Nicknamed “the Queen of the Lakes,” the Noronic was 362 feet long and could carry up to 600 passengers.
At 2:30 a.m., a passenger by the name of Donald Church smelled smoke in a corridor on C deck.
Investigating, he saw smoke coming from a locked linen closest. He told crew member Earnest O’Neil who, instead of sounding the alarm, retrieved the keys to unlock the closet. When he opened the door, flames erupted out of closest.
The wood panelling in the corridor had recently been polished with lemon oil. When the flames reached the panelling, the lemon oil acted like gasoline thrown on a fire. O’Neil, Church and two other men attempted to fight the flames with fire extinguishers but were forced to retreat.
Church then ran to get his family off the boat while O’Neil hurried to the officer’s quarters to sound the alarm. First mate Gerry Wood began blowing the Noronic’s whistle as an alarm. Frantic phone calls were made to the Toronto police and fire departments who reacted instantly.
Toronto harbour fire boats also rushed to the scene. Firefighters battle the fire aboard the Noronic in 1949. First responders arrived within 10 minutes.
The scene they arrived to was something even the most graphic horror movie wouldn’t be able to portray. The Noronic was engulfed from bow to stern. Shrieking passengers, some fully aflame, leaped off the decks slamming onto the concrete piers or into the oily waters of the harbour.
Courageous police officers frantically tore their gun belts and service shoes off and dove into the water to try and save as many victims as possible. With almost no crew members on duty, the passengers were left to fend for themselves. Firefighters tried to reach some of the passengers on the upper decks with extension ladders only to see one of the ladders collapse under the weight of numerous frantic passengers and the incredible heat generated by the fire.
The screams of the dying could be heard over the fire and police sirens. Firefighters poured water onto the flaming wreck. It took hours to finally extinguish the inferno.
When the sun rose that morning the Noronic was a burned-out hulk. The heat from the fire was so intense that the glass in her portholes and windows melted, and its steel decks and fixtures were warped from the heat. The aftermath of the horrific fire aboard the Noronic in 1949.
When first responders got onto the wreck, they found a “house of horrors.” There were charred skeletons embracing each other as if to comfort the other as death came for them. Other victims were so burned they could only be identified through the brand new science of forensic dentistry.
The death toll was estimated from 118 to 139. My mother was 14 in 1949 and grew up in Toronto. The day after the Noronic’s burning, she and her mother drove to the scene.
They were horrified at the sight of the sunken, burned hulk of what had been a beautiful, modern cruise ship. Mom also told me of the horrific smell that was a combination of the burned ship, its contents, and of course, human flesh. She told me it was a smell she would never forget.
A view of the aftermath of the deadly Noronic fire of 1949 in Toronto. The waterlogged, burned-out wreck, was eventually refloated, towed to Hamilton, and scrapped there. The Noronic fire led to a parliamentary investigation into the causes of the fire, and the conduct of the crew.
Far more stringent safety rules would follow and to date we thankfully have yet to see another such occurrence on the Great Lakes..
