Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

Naval Campaign is defined as to include all sea operations where attrition rates are in ones and twos and which do not fall within specific naval battles such as Jutland, Coronel, Falklands etc. This includes Merchant Navy losses.

Detail :

Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A List of Those Who Died Fatality no.: 1587 Name of Deceased Triggs, Lt Com Thomas Kenneth Date of Death 6 December 1917 Gender male Address Southsea, England Occupation Commander HMS Highflyer RN family Wife Ann Triggs, Western Parade, Southsea, father Capt Tom B & Mrs Triggs obituary Morning Chronicle April 30, 1918 p7 note Awarded Albert Medal in gold for heroics Dec. 6th HALIFAX EXPLOSION Mont Blanc loaded a cargo of 5,000 tons of high ex-plosive in New York on the last day of November, 1917, battened down her hatches, pulled out, and headed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where a dozen freighters were to assemble for convoy across to Europe. Mont Blanc made a fair weather passage right up to the time she reached Bedford Basin, passing through the narrows leading from Halifax to the convoy assembly point. Aboard the British cruiser HMS Highflyer, and the Canadian HMCS Niobe, fire-fighting squads were mus- tered as the two escort vessels at speed raced toward Mont Blanc, deserted now by her crew. They, safely ashore, were racing into nearby woodlands, hoping there to escape the full eif ects of what they feared would come at any second. Highflyer was alongside Mont Blanc when the freighter and its cargo exploded; and when it happened, pandemonium was let loose. One hundred and twenty miles distant, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, windows were shattered; Richmond, at the northern ex- tremity and the oldest part of Halifax, was utterly wiped out, and fire ravaged everything left standing of what had been a prosperous community. Down in the harbor, five ships assembled to form convoy were severely damaged, with two-thirds of their crews killed outright. And a tug which had been steaming from ship to ship was hoisted bodily from the water, carried swiftly into the shivering atmosphere above, and deposited on a nearby wharf. A vast tidal wave swept across Bedford Basin, climbed to a height of nearly fifteen feet, obliterating everything in its path, receded and dropped the water level a distance of nearly twelve feet. Ashore, over toward Dartmouth, lay Imo, her deckhouses gone, her four masts fractured and toppled into the water, her single tall funnel a mere mockery of what it had once been. Her crew were missing. Late that day they tried counting their casualties. Commander Triggs, of HMS Highflyer, lay dead with twenty of his officers and men; ashore, the number of killed, injured, and missing was quite unknown. They had started a count but had quit; they were unable to go on. It was terrifying, frightful.

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley