Joel Zemel

“If I had known the fascinating and poignant tale of Commander Wyatt’s personal life, as related by Joel Zemel, I doubt that the novelist in me could have resisted his compelling story. It gives to the factual literature of the Halifax Explosion, an unusually intimate personal dimension, worthy of a novel.”

- Robert MacNeil, author of the novel Burden of Desire

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Those familiar with Joel Zemel’s magisterial study of “the extraordinary legal proceedings following the 1917 Halifax Explosion” will recognize the Scapegoat of the title of his earlier book as Evan Wyatt, chief examining officer for the port of Halifax at the time of the disaster. Zemel has now produced an exemplary and engrossing biography of Commander Wyatt, whose complicated personal life Robert MacNeil, author of Burden of Desire, considers worthy of novelistic treatment. Apart from actual victims, Wyatt was perhaps the most tragic figure of the Halifax Disaster, a decent, honest, competent serving naval officer who did nothing wrong yet was excoriated for having done nothing right.

Betrayal of Trust is a fine accessible study of a character first memorably encountered in John Griffith Armstrong’s 2002 study, The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy: Inquiry and Intrigue. Well-written and illustrated with photographs and textual documents, Zemel’s new book also includes maps and plans, a thorough bibliography and index, as well as a very helpful timeline of events December 1917 through March 1920. The work sheds important light on the wreck commission inquiry set up to investigate the fatal collision in Halifax Harbour. Conducted by the local judge in vice-admiralty, Arthur Drysdale, as if it were a judicial court, the inquiry not only found fact but also found guilt, which was not its purpose under the Canada Shipping Act.

Zemel provides a thick narrative of the wreck commission inquiry which led directly to the arrest, indictment and trial of Wyatt for manslaughter. Though he was acquitted, Wyatt’s career was ruined. Justice Drysdale, for his part, had the effrontery to sit for the lawsuit involving civil liability for the collision, from which he should have recused himself. Incredibly, the litigation began while the wreck commission inquiry was in progress and went from the Exchequer Court to the Supreme Court of Canada and ultimately to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then the court of last resort for Canada.

The book also helps focus attention on one of the Big-Picture questions: why the catastrophic disaster was never properly investigated by the very government which, while denying any legal liability, was willing, as a quid pro quo, to assume financial responsibility for relief and recovery. Did the Government of Canada encourage or implicitly authorize the prosecution of Commander Wyatt? If so, this was the result of high public policy bearing directly on interallied relations during a critical stage of the Great War.

Commander Wyatt was an innocent man caught up in extraordinary circumstances far beyond his control, the Navy’s fall guy. Yet one must distinguish between criminal responsibility for an avoidable accident and responsibility in a broader, administrative sense in respect of the operations of an important naval base during wartime. Someone had to carry the can and Wyatt, apparently friendless or without influence where it counted, was singled out.

The federal government did not want to know why the Halifax Disaster happened. Scapegoats were therefore needed in order to cover for Ottawa’s failure to appoint a royal commission to investigate the disaster. Scapegoating was the path of least resistance in a country at war, with bigger and better things to do. It may also have been the only course that was politically possible under the circumstances, the disaster occurring in the midst of an extremely bitter federal election campaign. The Halifax Disaster was collateral damage, incidental to the world war in which Canada was so heavily involved. The vessel that exploded in Halifax Harbour was carrying munitions overseas to support the Allied war effort.

Wyatt, though not a victim of the disaster, was nevertheless a casualty of those impersonal geopolitical forces. His biography is an element of history writ large. An odd omission from the bibliography is Janet Maybee’s 2015 study of the other scapegoat, Pilot Mackey: Aftershock: The Halifax Explosion and the Persecution of Pilot Francis Mackey. Both he and Wyatt were scapegoats and both were persecuted. Their life histories are complementary and should be read together.

- Barry Cahill, Atlantic Books Today, September 2017… (altro)

Scapegoat is the winner of the John Lyman Book Award in the category of "Canadian Naval and Maritime History" for books published in 2016. The book also won a 2015 Bronze IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards) in the regional non-fiction category for Canada-East as well as the 2014 Dartmouth Book Award for non-fiction. The second edition (100th Anniversary of the Halifax Explosion Edition) is a 504 page book and a good read for those interested in the legal proceedings following the Halifax disaster.

Within the framework of the Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry transcripts and through the incorporation of additional legal records, official naval documentation, photographs and archived resources, this volume details the circumstances leading up to the day of the collision, fire and explosion in Halifax Harbour on 6 December 1917.

The courtroom then becomes the setting for a close examination of the inquiry as well as the numerous legal proceedings which followed. Ultimately, the evolution of the concerted efforts to indict a scapegoat in the wake of this unprecedented marine and civil disaster is revealed.

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The following review by Colonel John Boileau (ret.) of the 2014 Dartmouth Book Award and 2015 Bronze IPPY Book Award winner, Scapegoat, appeared in the 30/11/15 edition of the Halifax Chronicle Herald

Scapegoat Probes Explosion Fallout

Joel Zemel is — if nothing else — persistent.

In 2009, when the Halifax musician and filmmaker came across a photograph of the famous blast cloud that rose above the cityʼs harbour immediately after the disastrous collision of the Mont Blanc and Imo on Dec. 6, 1917, he became fascinated with determining the location from which it had been taken.

This interest led him to focus on the aftermath of the explosion, in particular the legal inquiry into the causes of the disaster that began on Dec. 13, a week after the event, and lasted until Feb. 4.

After more than three years of exhaustive research, Zemel had written what is certainly the single most comprehensive account of the legal proceedings, but discouragingly could not find a publisher. Undaunted, he took a route often fraught with difficulty: he self-published and had 100 copies of the book printed in November 2012.

He also submitted Scapegoat to the Atlantic Book Awards and it was first shortlisted and then won the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson in April 2014, a truly amazing achievement for a self-published book. At about the same time, Francis Mitchell of New World Publishing, who had been offering Zemel advice on distributing his book, offered to pick up the book on a print-on-demand basis.

Later, as a result of New Worldʼs involvement, Scapegoat won an international award: the 2015 bronze medal of the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the category of Canada East best regional non-fiction. Scapegoat is truly deserving of this recognition — and causes one to wonder why no local or regional publisher had enough foresight to publish the book in the first place.

Whatever the reason, Scapegoat readers will be treated to a masterly tour de force of the complicated and fascinating legal proceedings following the explosion, hearings that occurred during a tension-filled period to hold someone — anyone — responsible for the disaster. No one connected with the inquiry — from the preconceived notions of presiding Justice Arthur Drysdale to the bullying and dishonesty of several courtroom lawyers to the yellow journalism of William Dennisʼs Halifax Herald, which was based on rumours and innuendo — comes off as being interested in the truth, but instead single-mindedly determined to find a scapegoat.

The lack of impartiality and bias of those involved in the proceedings is shocking to the modern reader. In the end, Drysdale attributed sole responsibility for the disaster to the captain of the Mont Blanc, Aime Le Medec, and the shipʼs Halifax pilot, Francis Mackey. He also severely censured for negligence the officer responsible for controlling ship traffic in the harbour, Royal Canadian Navy acting commander F. Evan Wyatt.


Although all three were quickly charged with manslaughter, only Wyatt was brought to trial. Justice Benjamin Russell — who had earlier ordered the charges against Le Medec and Mackey dismissed, a decision that inflamed public opinion — instructed the jury at Wyattʼs trial that there was no case against the naval officer and he was acquitted.

Sadly, despite his acquittal, the public had found its scapegoat. Wyatt was dismissed from the navy, his career and reputation in tatters. Zemel strongly believes that Wyatt was railroaded and one of the reasons he wrote Scapegoat was to vindicate the naval officer. The reader can judge whether or not he has succeeded.

Zemel has reproduced large portions of the testimony of about 60 witnesses and placed them in the chronological order of the events of Dec. 6, itself a daunting task given the sheer number of transcripts and the large amount of other available written evidence. The authorʼs experience as a filmmaker served him well here, as he incorporated individual testimonies into a format similar to a
documentary film.

The result is a seamless witness account of the events of that fateful day, reproduced as never before. The centennial of the Halifax Explosion is only two years away and there are certain to be new books about the disaster as the anniversary date approaches, but none will equal the thoroughness of Scapegoat.

Explosion aficionados, as well as those who know little about the event, will find Scapegoat a great addition to the literature about the disaster. An added bonus of Zemelʼs book is photographs of virtually all the key players associated with the explosion and the inquiry, most of which have not been previously published.

John Boileau writes about our military history… (altro)