SS Richard Montgomery

For ships with similar names, see USS Montgomery.

Career
Name:	SS Richard Montgomery
Namesake:	Richard Montgomery
Builder:	St. John's River Shipbuilding, Jacksonville, Florida
Laid down:	15 March 1943
Launched:	15 June 1943
Acquired:	29 July 1943
Fate:	Wrecked, 20 August 1944
General characteristics
Type:	Liberty ship
Displacement:	14,245 long tons (14,474 t)
Length:	441 ft 6 in (134.57 m)
Beam:	56 ft 11 in (17.35 m)
Draft:	27 ft 10 in (8.48 m)
Propulsion:	Two oil-fired boilers, triple-expansion steam engine, single screw, 2,500 hp (1,864 kW)
Speed:	11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Complement:	41

SS Richard Montgomery was an American Liberty ship built during World War II, one of the 2,710 used to carry cargo during the war. The ship was wrecked off the Nore in the Thames Estuary in 1944 with around 1,500 tons of explosives on board, which continue to be a hazard to the area.

History

The ship was built by the St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company in its second year of operations, and was the seventh of the 82 such ships built by that yard. Laid down on 15 March 1943, she was launched on 15 June 1943, and completed on 29 July 1943, given the official ship number 243756, and named after General Richard Montgomery, an Irish-American soldier who was killed during the American Revolutionary War.

In August 1944, on what was to be its final voyage, the ship left Hog Island, Philadelphia, where it had been loaded with 6,127 tons of munitions.

It travelled from the Delaware river to the Thames Estuary, then anchored while awaiting the formation of a convoy to travel to Cherbourg, France, which had already fallen to the Allies (on 27 July 1944) during the Battle of Normandy.

When Richard Montgomery arrived off Southend, it came under the authority of the Thames naval control at HMS Leigh located at the end of Southend Pier. The harbour master, responsible for all shipping movements in the estuary, ordered the ship to a berth off the north edge of Sheerness middle sands. On 20 August 1944 it dragged anchor and ran aground on a sandbank around 250 metres from the Medway Approach Channel,[1] in a depth of 24 ft (7.3 m) of water. The general dry cargo liberty ship had an average draught of 28 ft (8.5 m); however, the Montgomery was trimmed to a draught of 31 ft (9.4 m). The ship broke its back on sand banks near the Isle of Sheppey, about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from Sheerness and 5 miles (8 km) from Southend.

A Rochester-based Stevedore Company was given the job of removing the cargo, which began on 23 August 1944, using the ship's own cargo handling equipment. By the next day, the ship's hull had cracked open, causing several cargo holds at the bow end to flood. The salvage operation continued until 25 September, when the ship was finally abandoned. Subsequently, the ship broke into two separate parts, roughly at the mid-section.

During the enquiry that followed, it was revealed that several ships moored nearby had noticed the Montgomery drifting toward the sandbank. They had attempted to signal an alert by sounding their sirens without avail, since throughout this Captain Wilkie of the Montgomery was asleep. The ship's chief officer was unable to explain why he had not alerted the captain.

Current status

File:Wreck of the Richard Montgomery (to left of buoy) - geograph.org.uk - 19013.jpg

Warning buoy marking the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery (masts visible to left)

Due to the presence of the large quantity of unexploded ordnance, the ship is monitored by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. In 1973 it became the first wreck designated as dangerous under section 2 of the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 and there is an exclusion zone around it monitored visually and by radar. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency nevertheless believe that the risk of a major explosion is remote. The UK government's Receiver of Wreck commissioned a risk assessment in 1999, but this risk assessment has not been published (as reported in the New Scientist, 21 August 2004). The Maritime and Coastguard Agency convened with local and port authorities to discuss the report in 2001 and concluded that "doing nothing was not an option for much longer."

According to a survey conducted in 2000 by the United Kingdom Maritime and Coastguard Agency survey the wreck still contains 3,173 tons of munitions containing 1,400 tons of TNT. These comprise the following items of ordnance:

• 286 × 2,000 lb (910 kg) bombs
• 4,439 × 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs of various types
• 1,925 × 500 lb (230 kg) bombs
• 2,815 fragmentation bombs and bomb clusters
• Smoke bombs, including white phosphorus smoke bombs
• Pyrotechnic signals
• Booster charges

One of the reasons why the explosives have not been removed was the unfortunate outcome of a similar operation in July 1967 to neutralize the contents of the Kielce, a ship of Polish origin, sunk in 1946 off Folkestone in the English Channel. During preliminary work the Kielce, containing a comparable amount of ordnance, exploded with force equivalent to an earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale, digging a 20-foot (6 m) deep crater in the seabed and bringing "panic and chaos" to Folkestone, although no injuries.

According to a BBC news report, in 1970 it was determined that if the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery exploded, it would throw a 1,000-foot (300 m) wide column of water and debris nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in the air and generate a wave 16 feet (5 m) high. Almost every window in Sheerness (pop. c20,000) would be broken and buildings would be damaged by the blast.

Critics of government assurances that the likelihood of a major explosion is remote argue that there is a possibility that over time a partially flooded fuse in the 2600 fused fragmentation devices may become less stable owing to its lead azide constituent reacting with water vapour (rather than liquid seawater) to form hydrazoic acid. This could then react with copper in the detonating cap, to form extremely sensitive copper azide. A knock, such as caused by the ship breaking up further, or a collision on the busy shipping lane, could cause the copper azide to explode, triggering an explosive chain reaction resulting in the detonation of the bulk of the munitions.

Similarly, when the condition of the munitions was originally assessed there was concern that copper azide would be produced through reaction between the lead azide and copper from brass fuse components. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency argue that the fuses will probably have been flooded for many years and consequently the hazard is insignificant since these chemicals are water soluble and will have been washed away.

The wreck site has been surveyed regularly since 1965 to determine the stability of the structure, with the most recent diver survey being completed in 2003. There have been subsequent high-resolution multi-beam sonar surveys in 2005 and September 2006 which have confirmed that no significant movement of the wreck has taken place recently. The Department for Transport has stated that it also needs to commission a survey of the munitions still on board; this survey has not been done yet.

The increasing calls for a new airport in the Thames estuary would mean a solution would have to be found for removing/making safe the wreck, should the airport be built.

In popular culture

The wreck is central to the plot of Stephen Barlay's 1977 novel Blockbuster, in which an extortionist threatens to blow it up, thereby causing serious flooding in central London, if his demands are not met.

The wreck also briefly features in the television drama Waking the Dead, in the episode "Walking On Water," as the dumping ground for a fishing boat containing three murdered women. Exterior shots were filmed at Leigh-on-Sea on the other side of the Thames Estuary.

The wreck also features in James Barrington's novel Timebomb in which a group of European terrorists, financed by a dissident Saudi, attempt to ram a speed boat, remotely controlled, loaded with semtex onto the wreck.

The explosion of the wreck, and a subsequent chain reaction of explosions of tankers and petrochemical installations, is the start point of Malcolm Rose's young-adult adventure series beginning with Jordan Stryker: Bionic Agent, where the eponymous 13-year-old hero is nearly killed by the blast and subsequently reconstructed by a secret government organisation.

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Turner, F.R. (1995). Wreck of the USS Richard Montgomery. ISBN 0-9524303-6-3. 
• Hamer, Mick (21 August 2004). "The doomsday wreck". New Scientist: 36–39. ISSN 1032-1233 Z. 
• Anderson, Barrie. "Escapade 297" [2]. ISBN 978-0755210930. 

External links

• Maritime and Coastguard Agency website page, including links to survey reports
• River Thames Sites
• Men and ships of US Merchant marine (merchant navy)
• Links to historical information