Margen
For eighty-two years the only thing showing of the SS Richard Montgomery was three steel masts standing in the water of the Thames estuary, 2.4 kilometres from Sheerness on the Kent coast. In September 2026 they were cut down. Inside the hull there are still some 1,400 tons of explosive that nobody has ever removed.
The ship was an American Liberty-class freighter, launched in 1943 in Jacksonville, Florida. It reached the estuary on 20 August 1944 with its holds full of munitions for the French front and was ordered to anchor off the Great Nore, a spot too shallow for a vessel that heavily loaded. As the tide fell it dragged its anchor and grounded on Sheerness Middle Sand, a sandbank running east from the Isle of Grain.
That same evening the hull began to buckle: raised in the middle, sagging at both ends. A bang was heard that was not an explosion but the steel plates splitting forward of the bridge. On the 23rd stevedores were brought in from Gravesend to empty the holds; the next day the crack reached the bottom and the forward holds flooded, and on 8 September the ship broke its back completely. The Royal Navy kept hauling out crates until bad weather and the risk made it impossible. When the salvage was abandoned, some 1,400 tons of net explosive were still inside, in holds 1, 2 and 3.
Since 1973 it has been listed as a dangerous wreck under section 2 of Britain's Protection of Wrecks Act: entering its perimeter without the written permission of the Secretary of State for Transport is a criminal offence. It sits right beside the approach channel to the river Medway, where the merchant ships come in, and five miles from Southend. The prohibited area is marked with sixteen buoys and the Medway vessel traffic service watches it around the clock.
Nobody went down for a close look: the last dive dated from 2013, and since 2002 the wreck has been measured with multibeam sonar, which in that murky, hugely tidal estuary works better than a diver. Each survey compares 96 reference points marked on the hull. The October 2023 one found two things: the whole bow section had tilted another 10 to 15 centimetres eastward, probably because the current is eating the sediment on that side, and the deck beside hold 3 had started to collapse on the port side.
The masts were heavy, and they pulled down on decks that were already giving way; if one came down on the wrong hold, the blow would land directly on the cargo. The British government commissioned their removal for up to 9.5 million pounds, and the salvage company Resolve Marine began work on the wreck in early September, this time with divers. The UK maritime minister, Keir Mather, told the House of Commons that all three were out, ahead of schedule and under budget. The masts have not been scrapped: they are going to the Historic Dockyard at Chatham, where they will be conserved in public view.
The cargo has not been touched. Moving 1,400 tons of eighty-year-old ammunition is still considered more dangerous than leaving it alone, and the official report repeats the same formula every year: the wreck is thought to be stable if left undisturbed. The wreck is still measured once a year with multibeam sonar: the next survey will be the first of a ship with no masts.