" Night into Day"


One Sunday while working the afternoon shift at Bathurst St. and having a little time on my hands, I decided to try and make a big fire cracker.

I cut open the contents of several track torpedoes and fusees and stuffed them into an empty paper towel roll, and for a wick I had a piece of string, soaked with kerosene.

I took the thing outside and lit it but it wouldn't go off, I was very discouraged to say the least.

I came to the conclusion that the thing would have to be impacted to make it go off and as I had no way of doing that, short of hitting it with a hammer, and I had no intention of doing that, I would have to get rid of it.

I emptied the contents into an old tobacco can that we used for tacks, and took it outside.

I called Jack Ch. the afternoon Yardmaster, who was a very good friend of mine in the tower and told him to watch the Yard Office, after which I lit the thing.

It went off lighting up the Yard all the way to Spadina Ave. melting the can and, Jack exclaims with great excitement over the speakers along the lead, what the hell was that.

When I told him he had a little chuckle, and said he would tell me of a little experience he had, had, in Italy during his stint in WWII.

Jack was in the Signal Corp. and was a Radio Operator and wandering around one day came upon a deserted house with some unexploded artillery shells which he proceeded to take apart.

The shell was loaded with cordite that looks like lead from a lead pencil.

Jack took the cordite into the house which was pretty rough anyway, and puts it in the fire place placing the cordite end to end until it was outside, where he lights it, and runs back to see the show.

The thing goes off spewing flames out of every door and window of the house and if there had been any surviving windows there were none now.

Another War story relating to explosions I can't let pass was related to me at work by Jack Co. , notice a different Jack.

Jack Co. was new and green at the front, when one night after midnight, he was told to walk about a mile up this road and reconnoiter the road.

You could hear exploding artillery in the distance and Jack was not to happy with this assignment, but off he goes, trying to be very quiet and careful.

It's extremely dark and you can hardly see your hands in front of your face, when all of a sudden right beside where he is standing, an artillery piece goes off.

Al says he I shit my pants, I literally shit my pants and couldn't stop shitting for what seemed like minutes, and ran all the way back to his post with shit running down his legs where he told what had happened.

Al he says, they had to burn my uniform, and I never did figure out, if it was one of ours, or theirs.

When , I think of it, I should have paid more attention to the war stories, because a great deal of the workers when I started in 1953 were returned Vets, and while many never spoke of their experiences the odd one would, and those stories would have been invaluable now.

Allan