Foreign News: Death at the Barn Dance

It was Saturday night in St. Johns. The barn dance was in full swing down in the war-built Knights of Columbus recreation center. About 500 men & women, many of them Canadian sailors, soldiers and flyers, were packed into the wooden box.

Those who could not squeeze in went home to listen on the radio. Shortly after 11, above the square dance calls, they heard a woman’s shrill: “Fire!” Other voices ordered: “Keep quiet.” Then the microphone went dead.

Listeners rushed downtown, saw angry flames licking the structure, heard screams of agony within. In ten minutes it was all over. As in Boston’s Cocoanut Grove fire (TIME, Dec. 7) many died trampled at the exits, some were unrecognizably burned. The death count was at least 100, and rising.