it was a rainy afternoon in july 1974 when the royal canadian army cadets of d
company filed into a classroom at canadian forces base valcartier quebec the cadets all boys aged
13 to 18 were glad for the chance to sit down and relax having just undergone a rigorous inspection
of their barracks and hours of marching drill in the rain they were about to receive a lecture on
explosive safety delivered by guest presenter captain jean-claude to help with his lecture
captain gero had brought along some visual aids dummies of various explosive ordinances including
land mines rocket projectiles and hand grenades all were painted bright colors to indicate that
they were inert and safe but as the lecture began and the visual aids were passed around the room
captain churro noticed something odd among the brightly colored dummies was one item
an m61 fragmentation hand grenade painted olive green just like a live munition however he thought
little of it for the dummies had been handled by dependable weapons technicians who would have
ensured that everything was safe but then at 2 17 pm an explosion ripped through the packed
classroom shattering the windows and splattering the walls with blood when the smoke cleared six
cadets lay dead and 54 were wounded the valcartier grenade incident of july the 30th 1974 was the
worst tragedy in the history of the army cadets yet within days it would be all but forgotten
swept under the rug by a military establishment unprepared to deal with the psychological fallout
but while the army and the nation quickly moved on for the survivors the after-effects of that
terrible day would linger for far longer formed in 1861 the royal canadian army cadets are canada's
oldest youth organization funded and administered by the canadian department of national defense the
cadets serve much the same function as the boy scouts teaching practical skills in leadership
teamwork and self-reliance but in a more overtly military setting with greater emphasis on command
drill cleanliness uniform maintenance weapons training and other aspects of military life
however the organization is not directly affiliated with the armed forces and participation
carries no obligation of later military service every year 250 cadets are selected to undergo
advanced non-commissioned officer or nco training as part of the cadet leader program this program
is intended to train and prepare the cadets to return to their home units as the next generation
of leaders for those posted to valcartier in the 1970s activities included leadership courses
drill athletics canoeing orienteering survival bushcraft cultural excursions to quebec city
and weapons safety and handling though the cadets would not have been handling any weapons heavier
than a regular service rifle given that they were training on an active army base it was reasonably
assumed that they might at some point come across unexploded ordnance consequently in the summer of
1974 captain jean-claudia commanding officer of the ammunition section at cfb valcartier
organized a series of safety lectures to make sure the cadets could identify the most common
types of explosive weapons and knew what to do should they find one namely not touch it and
report it to a superior officer the lectures took place throughout the month of july with the final
lecture for d company scheduled for the afternoon of july 30. cadet officer jerry pistati 18 at the
time was in an adjacent room typing up a report when the explosion occurred he later described the
scene in his 2011 memoir as you were the noise sounded like a thunderclap without the rolling
echo afterward almost as if we were at the center of it the sound took me by surprise and shook the
whole building no the whole company with a shock wave i could hear glass shatter as a window blew
out and there was a moment when everything went silent then as if on cue there were cries people
began screaming and streaming out of the barrack through the side door at least one person went
through a window lieutenant casco was in the hallway bent over clutching at his stomach as
though he was hugging himself he was moving slowly with uneven wavering steps and a few people bumped
him as they passed neither side of us their hands faces and clothing were splattered with blood
some had torn clothing and their eyes were filled with terror i leapt up the three stairs into the
room and looked around getting my eyes adjusted to the dim light and the smoke i was completely
unprepared for what i saw through the dense acrid smoke i could make out a large black burn hole in
the floor and people laying all around some were moving others were not blood was splattered and
smeared on the walls one cadet stared at me as i moved toward him i could see through the rip
in his pants that he had a leg injury but i didn't think it would keep him from walking
with assistance as i bent over to help him up i saw the cadet just behind him about a meter away
i felt my stomach jump his face was gone there was no way i could have said who he was because
the front of his head was a massive red pulp the next hour flew past in a chaotic blur as fasti and
others on the scene mostly fellow cadets scrambled to evacuate the building and administer first aid
being only four years since the october crisis of 1970 many feared that the explosion had been due
to a terrorist attack as ambulances rushed away the dead and severely wounded those with only
minor injuries were loaded onto trucks and driven to the base movie theater where they watched a
swords and sandals air pick while med extended to their wounds as d-company headquarters would have
to be sealed off for investigation the survivors were temporarily lodged in the base chapel where
they spent a long uneasy night meanwhile festati and other officer cadets were taken to the base
hospital to carry out the identification of the dead in all six cadets were killed in the
explosion all 14 or 15 years old ivlangra 15. pierre leroux eric lloyd orthol mangos
mario provoste and michelle vassar 54 others were wounded with injuries ranging from minor
cuts to hearing and vision loss to paralysis and brain damage yet despite the shocking and tragic
nature of the accident it made barely a ripple in the press one of the few papers to report on
the tragedy was the quebec tabloid le journal de montreal whose headline described it as the
massacre at valcartier a few other papers would pick up on the story but only as brief articles
buried in the back pages many with wildly varying numbers for the dead and wounded they suited the
army just fine for it was ill-equipped to deal with such a tragedy especially one involving
so many children so rather than confronting the incident the army chose instead to forget it while
a brief memorial service for the dead was held a week later otherwise training and activities
carried on as before the cadets were never debriefed on the incident nor were they provided
with counseling or mental health services in fact all the cadets even those who had been present
at the blast were instructed not to discuss the incident with anyone and in this more innocent age
they all obeyed such was the desire to move on that d company even had his group photograph
retaken with the dead and wounded absent as if that simply never existed meanwhile the army
began its investigation into the cause of the explosion while forensics teams scrutinized the
blast site dozens of witnesses were brought in and interrogated in a move described by many witnesses
as strangely sinister these interrogations were carried out deep in the bowels of valcartier's
government fallout shelter or diaphragm bunker and for more on those please do check out our
previous video that time the toilets gave away a big cold war secret in reality the air-conditioned
bunker was chosen to provide both investigators and witnesses relief from the summer heat slowly
the investigators pieced together the convoluted chain of events that led to a live grenade making
its way into the classroom nearly a month before the incident captain giraud was asked to deliver
electron-explosive safety to the cadets giro duly appointed a subordinate warrant officer gaytar
campo to gather the needed visual aids and deliver the lecture on the morning of july the 15th
1974 campo made the rounds of the base gathering up various pieces of dummy ordnance campo placed
these items in the back of a truck and drove to the headquarters of f company where he proceeded
to deliver his first lecture early that afternoon he then stored the dummies overnight at the
base ammunition depot before retrieving them and delivering a lecture to a company the next morning
after that second lecture campo returned the truck to the depot and asked an employee there
gerard drewlay to empty the truck but the dummies back in storage for reasons that have never been
determined this request was never fulfilled and the dummies remained in the park truck for another
two days on july the 18th corporal claude dao of the combat arms school was sent to the ammunition
depot to pick up the batch of 160 m61 hand grenades for use in grenade throwing practice
commonly known as the lemon grenade the m61 was introduced in the 1950s to replace the classic
m2 pineapple grenade of world war ii vintage it featured a number of improvements over the m2
including a fuse that didn't spark or smoke more stable 164 gram composition b explosive filling
and an internal coil of notched wire that produced more consistent and lethal fragments than the m2's
rigid body a highly effective anti-personnel weapon the m61 could kill and wound soldiers up
to 15 meters away the grenades were waiting for corporado when he arrived 150 packed in wooden
crates of 30 grenades each and the remaining 10 in a cardboard box corporal dave signed down the
weapons and transported them to the combat arms school where he handed them off to the weapons
instructor sergeant albert dussey during training that morning all but 19 of the grenades were used
or 160 should have been expended but one grenade failed to explode and had to be safely detonated
by an ordinance disposal team by the time this was completed no time remained to finish the
training session sergeant dusay duly packed up the remaining 19 grenades in a wooden box and
drove them to the ammunition depot where he met up with corporal daeu as it was nearly noon dusay
instructed deyou to place the box of grenades in the back of a nearby truck intending to deal with
them after lunch unknown to dussey and daeu this was the exact same truck that warrant
officer campbeau had used two days prior the dummy ordnance still scattered about the truck bed for
unknown reasons julie proceeded to forget about the grenades until four o'clock that afternoon
when warrant officer campbeau overheard him mention the crate and ordered him to remove
it from the truck quickly inspecting the back of the truck relay discovered to his surprise that
the live grenades had somehow been transferred from their original wooden crate to a cardboard
box as truly began carrying the box back to the depot campo arrived and quickly inspected the back
of the truck where he found a single live grenade which had fallen out of the box and lay among the
dummies campo performed a more thorough search of the truck but turned up nothing and after
returning the missing grenade to the box asked julie if all the grenades were accounted for truly
confirmed that they were but he was mistaken for another live grenade had fallen out and now lay
among the dummies scattered in the back of the truck unaware of the discrepancy drew lake took
the box inside only to discover he had forgotten his keys to the storage room instead he locked the
box in a cleaning closet inside the guard house where they would be forgotten until several days
after the explosion the next day campo asked two ammunition depot employees to remove the dummies
from the truck because he wanted to use the vehicle the next day the employees duly gathered
up all the dummies and the one live grenade and placed them in a cardboard box that they did
not double check all the items was attributed to the fact that it was raining heavily at the time
they placed the box in one of the depot buildings where it would remain until july the 23rd on that
day with warrant officer campo on vacation captain giroud delivered the safety lecture to sea company
himself during the lecture his assistant corporal jacques cario noticed an unusual item circulating
among the cadets an olive green grenade still in its green fiberboard storage tube corporal coudeau
quickly snatched the grenade away from the cadet he was holding it and returned to the kabul box
however he took no further action later testifying that while the unusual color of the grenade had
caught his attention he had taken it from the cadet because he believed there was already enough
dummy ordinance circulating amongst the class the next lecture for d company was scheduled for
the afternoon of july the 30th while all the previous lectures had been conducted outside
due to rain it was instead moved indoors to the d-company barracks 137 cadets filed into
the room and at 1 30 pm the lecture began captain giroud began by giving a general overview of the
capabilities and inherent dangers of explosives while his assistant and ammunition technician
pulled the dummy explosives out of the box and passed them around to the cadets once again the
unusual presence of a green colored grenade was noticed but as all the items had ostensibly been
handled and inspected by captain giroux the ammo tech assured the cadets that they were all inert
dummies as the green grenade made its way around the room several cadets pulled out the safety pin
only to discover that it was extremely difficult to put back in this occurred many times before the
grenade reached 14 year old eric lloyd who also proceeded to pull out the pin this time however
he also released the spoon the curved handle that serves as the last safety feature preventing the
grenade from arming around four seconds later the grenade detonated in his hands killing him and
neighbor author mangus instantly the four others would dire their wounds within the hour the whole
sequence of events was a tragic comedy of errors filled with dozens of minor errors oversights and
coincidences any of which if avoided could have single-handedly prevented the tragedy
the army investigation the subsequent civilian coroner's inquest blame the incident on captain
juror and his subordinates the coroner's report stated jiro 30 neglected his duties as instructor
by not checking of dummy grenades to ascertain there were no live grenades among them i also
do not hesitate to blame the high authorities of the base for their apathy and disinterest which
seemed to have led to a climate of negligence and thoughtlessness two months later gero was formally
charged with criminal negligence and brought before a civil court only to be judged not guilty
in june of 1977. no other formal charges were ever laid regarding the incident one key piece of the
puzzle which was never solved was how the live grenade ended up being moved from their original
wooden crate to the cardboard box allowing two of them to fall out into the bed of the truck
investigators could only speculate that someone on the base had needed a wooden box and had
appropriated the grenade crate for this purpose but whoever or whatever was responsible the damage
was done both physical and psychological as the summer came to a close the cadets
dispersed their home units across canada carrying their unaddressed trauma with them in as you were
jerry ferstati describes the feeling of alienation that many of them felt i held out the childish
hope that eventually someone would rescue me from that day i waited for the longest time
but rescue never came i think the administrative officers at the base were expecting or hoping that
someone else would take care of it while the officers at our home units wouldn't understand
what we had gone through our families didn't know either mistakenly thinking that what happened
had happened near us not to us we dispersed throughout the province soon afterwards and
we had been conditioned to accept that what had happened was not important so we believed our
residual feelings were abnormal and no one talked about it for more than four decades this trauma
suppressed by a cold war ethos of secrecy and denial would haunt the cadets of d company it
was not until 2017 that canadian defense minister harjit sayan formally apologized for the incident
and agreed to award up to 310 000 in compensation to each of the survivors and their families for
pain suffering and medical expenses so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did
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you