December 12, 1942 gave witness to one of the most devastating fires ever to occur in ?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />St. John's, Newfoundland. That night, 99 civilians and military personnel perished in what was likely an incidence of enemy sabotage. Newfoundlanders and U.S. servicemen alike lost their lives in the fire and joined the ranks of those hundred of thousands killed during World War II. This book explores the possibility, and ultimately the near certainty, that agents of Nazi Germany orchestrated this great tragedy.?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Darrin Michael McGrath was born in St. John’s in 1966, son of Mary McGrath (Smart) and the late Patrick McGrath. He attended St. Bonaventure’s College and Brother Rice High School, before earning a B.A. and an M.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland. His Master’s degree was partially funded through an Orville Erickson Memorial Scholarship from the Canadian Wildlife Federation and from a research grant from the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Memorial University.Since 1992 he has taught sociology at Memorial University of Newfoundland and at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook. He has published several academic papers on environmental issues such as poaching, wildlife laws, and privatization of the outdoors. Darrin has been active in a number of environmental and community groups, and he is an avid outdoorsman, who enjoys canoeing, angling, and hunting.

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