Kentish Express Ashford & District
FACE THE CHOP
months. If following normal procedures, it would necessitate the evacuation of about 40,000 people for the entire period.
“It would be a hazardous occupation that would require different techniques for different bombs. In the case of the Richard Montgomery, the level of uncertainty virtually precludes any kind of rigorous risk assessment which would be a necessary first step in determining the right course of action.”
He added: “One study in 1970 said blowing it up wouldn’t do much damage other than break a few windows in Sheerness, which I find difficult to understand. It would be an underwater explosion - albeit a very shallow one. Would that generate a tsunami or would the water act as a barrier and mitigate the blast?
“Another scenario is a 3,000-metre high column of water, debris, sand and steel, and a five-metre tsunami which would then wash across the Isle of Grain.
“After the Japanese earthquake in 2011, the entire coast was on fire after the tsunami because oil caught fire and floated on the water while still ablaze. If that went up the Thames, goodness knows what would happen.”
One person with a shrewd idea is Sittingbourne councillor Ken Rowles whose film company Action Plus Media spent eight years making a gripping 50-minute documentary with Ian McShane about the wreck called A Disaster Waiting To Happen.
He has offered it to the BBC but says bosses are reluctant to show it. He said darkly: “I wonder if they’re being censored by the government because my film doesn’t pull any punches?
“I even have footage of Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London saying he would move the wreck or make it safe when he was pushing for an airport at Grain. I wonder what his plan is now?”
Built in Florida, it was one of a number of cargo vessels made in the US during the Second World War.
Designed to be simple and costeffective to construct, the shortcuts in their creation saw hull plating welded rather than riveted - a process which would prove key to the Montgomery’s destiny. Launched in 1943, she was put straight into service, crossing the Atlantic to Liverpool.
But in August 1944 she began her fateful journey. Loaded with 6,225 tonnes of high explosive bombs and detonators in Philadelphia, she set sail to Cherbourg to meet with the US Air Force.
First, though, she was to join an Allied convoy en route, in the Thames Estuary.
Upon arrival, she was ordered to berth off Sheerness but on August 20, 1944, dragged anchor and ran aground on a sandbank. As the tide receded she broke her back around 1.5 miles from
Sheerness. The crew, made aware of the ship’s perilous state by the loud noise of its hull giving way, all escaped unharmed.
A salvage operation took place days later, but the ship’s hull cracked open and areas became flooded. A month later the effort was abandoned due to the danger it posed.
It subsequently broke into two. It has been left untouched ever since, lying in around seven metres of water.