Remembering the Kootenay explosion, nearly five decades later
Haydn Watters | CBC News | Posted: October 23, 2016 8:41 PM | Last Updated: October 23, 2016
Nine crew members were killed 47 years ago Sunday in Canada’s worst peacetime navy accident
Nearly five decades have passed since the deadly explosion aboard HMCS Kootenay — Canada's worst peacetime navy accident — but the memory lives on.
Sunday marks the tragedy's 47th anniversary. This year, the province has declared it HMCS Kootenay Day, a proclamation made during a memorial ceremony on Friday. Nine crew members were killed on the ship in 1969 after a gearbox exploded. Its home port was in Halifax.
One of those honoured during Friday's ceremony wasn't even on board.
Harry Bryan has played his bugle every year to mark the anniversary, including at the funerals of those killed. He was on another ship at the time of the explosion. But he has become an honorary member of the Kootenay survivors group, who gave him a trophy and a photo.
Friday's ceremony marked the first where he didn't play the bugle live. Instead, the audience heard a recording of Bryan playing his bugle.
"The lips are sort of, I guess, retired," he said.
He said he would continue attending the ceremony, even though he can't play anymore.
"It's a fantastic privilege to be here."
118 crew still alive
Allan "Dinger" Bell was on board during the explosion and remembers it vividly. There's no complete record of who was on board the day of the explosion, so Bell has spent several years trying to track the crew down.
He figures there were 243 or 244 people on board, 118 of whom are still alive. He said it's important that others continue to remember the explosion.
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Bryan has played a big role helping do that, something Bell acknowledged during the ceremony.
"He told me, he said as long as he was able to play the bugle, he would play the bugle. And unfortunately, we're facing our own immortality and the time has come that we can't do it no more."
Bell said the survivors will continue to have Bryan play, through the recording.
"It was wonderful to have Harry do that."