THE SS RICHARD L MONTGOMERY – WHAT’S GOING ON?

On 17 Dec, 2020 By James Hart With Comments Off

Careless – not a word I’d use to describe the professionalism of the Liberty ship crew Richard L Montgomery as she sailed from Philadelphia to the Thames estuary en route to Cherbourg, France.

Ultimately the ship was lost, but not before sailing with 6 thousand tonnes of ammunition and keeping close convoy formation amidst an ever-present U-boat threat. She sailed into Loch Ewe, Scotland, thereafter joining a tanker convoy to Milford Haven until finally arriving at anchorage off Southend in August 1944.

Coastal waters demand good watch-keeping skills, and this extended route from the US to Southend would be unforgiving to careless mariners.

And contrary to popular belief the Montgomery was not lost to enemy action at all, but instead to miscommunication from the Thames harbourmaster who ordered the ship’s captain to drop anchor in what appears to be an unsuitable area.

On August 20 the ship dragged anchor in a gale and sank. The American crew and naval armed guard – all typically from home ports such as NYC, Boston and Jacksonville – managed to evacuate in lifeboats and were temporarily billeted in Southend some miles away, leaving behind the cargo of HE bombs, bombs of various types, detonators and explosive booster charges.

So carelessness from the ship’s crew wasn’t an issue – but with enough explosives to destroy the immediate area it was sensible to abandon ship.

Anyway, the ship settled into 15 metres of mud and water. A Rochester-based stevedore company was given the job of removing the cargo, until due to the submerged hull cracking open this dangerous job ceased.

For the record, there is evidence that the salvage crew received extra payment to speedily complete; despite all that bad weather prevented all munitions being removed which left approximately 1,400 tonnes remaining.

But seventy-five years on, and because of the large quantity of unexploded ordnance, the ship is monitored regularly by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency ( MCA) and clearly marked on Admiralty charts. In 1973 she became the first designated wreck upon the Protection of Wrecks Act (1973) with a strict exclusion zone marked by red buoys, these markers being very conspicuous.

In 1946 the American government offered to remove the munitions, but for some reason this proposal was declined in the UK…. perhaps the reason will never be known.

The wreck has some prominence in local folklore, and if any seafarers had ever been to the Merchant Navy Sea School at Gravesend they’d know that Kent locals regularly talked about ‘the wreck’ noting that ‘if it did blow up, it would wipe out Southend.’ ‘Boom! and goodbye’ they said.

As an aside, I didn’t ever understand why Kent people believed that it would only be this Essex town which would be destroyed by an explosion and tidal wave. Was it black humour? Or don’t they like Southend? I thought.

Southend takes it in good part however, and it’s a common jibe in the housing market that the best houses there are those well away from the river ……. just in case, say locals.

However, after spending time in the area, both at Gravesend Sea School and on Thames shipping, I got the feeling that the average Joe living around there is quite philosophical about the dangers on their shores. Bizarrely, there’s a pleasure boat company which makes a good living doing Montgomery summer excursion trips along the river,but NOT inside the exclusion zone.

To underline locals’ blasé views, one belief persists that over time, the danger of an explosion will lessen as the effects of seawater deteriorate the munition fuses.

Call it self-deception – call it what you will – but this very unscientific theory isn’t shared by esteemed publications such as New Scientist which concluded that the ‘cargo was still deadly and could be detonated by a collision, an attack or even shifting of the cargo in the tide’. (1)

Government documents declassified recently reveal that the wreck should have been dealt with, but wasn’t from the years 1944-2000 due to cost. Which prompted the MCA to convene with Thames port and harbour authorities reporting finally that ‘doing nothing [with the Montgomery] isn’t an option anymore.’ (2)

But cost aside, let’s suppose that we cut past governments some slack, so to speak, in regarding the Montgomery’s cargo. Because there’s a cautionary tale in the example of another ammunition ship, the Kielce, which sank off Folkestone post-WW2.

For this should be warning enough: in July 1967, work in removing Kielce’s munitions resulted in a massive explosion and a 20 foot crater in the seabed. Although thankfully there were no injuries, the munitions in the holds of this WW2 vessel were ‘only a small fraction of the Richard L Montgomery’.

The Kielce was submerged 3 miles off the coast and the explosion resulted in a recorded figure of 4.5 on the Richter Scale (3), whilst the Montgomery is less than one mile away – cause for a rethink, you might say!

Returning to the New Scientist, reports that far from ammunition being rendered inert through long submersion in seawater, a reaction between components in fuse mechanisms would instead produce copper azide, a very sensitive explosive.

A knock – such as the ship breaking up further – or a collision in the busy shipping lane could produce a series of chain reactions; this theory is further supported by various individuals and bodies writing to Gov.uk for a Freedom of Information request.

At the present time, public bodies such as the MCA believe that the risks of munition explosion ‘are remote’ due to their deterioration in seawater. Which clearly indicates that the MCA have changed their tune from the year 2000 when they announced that ‘doing nothing wasn’t an option’.

You get the picture – it’s confusing where science ends and self-interest begins.

For example, one Freedom of Information request lobbying government to remove the munitions came from a marine salvage company – no prizes there for guessing what their motives are.

The Montgomery wreck has, nonetheless, been debated in Parliament as recently as July 2019 when Lord Harris of Haringey questioned the House:

‘What actions are Her Majesty’s Government taking to mitigate the risks posed by the wreck of the Richard L Montgomery?’

Quoting that a 500-kg unexploded WW2 bomb in Thames mud was recently ‘made safe’ is telling – this UXB close to London City Airport – ‘can such bombs laying in Thames mud be disregarded?’ suggested Lord Harris.

His question is to the point as it is common sense: because if water rendered it inert, why wasn’t the bomb just left there?

Although the risk assessment of a UXB dragged up being inert doesn’t rest solely upon common sense, most people would say. Bombs and mines are dragged up from Britain’s coastline regularly and none of these are just dumped on a landfill site – they are dealt with according to risk assessment and best practice.

Anyway, back to the Montgomery debate as the peer elaborates: ‘whenever a large LNG tanker sails past the wreck there is always an escort of three tugs, whereas any other vessels do not – it seems to me that the biggest risk is of a ship colliding with the Montgomery and setting off an explosion.’ (4)

A lively talk ensued with one MP’s supporting statement that ‘casualties are still occurring today from exploding 100 year-old ammunition in WW1 no-man’s land’ [from water-logged soil] – the inference being that water doesn’t necessarily mitigate explosives effects.

Another MP wisely noted that the danger wasn’t only from a direct huge explosion, but also the detaching of thousands of smaller detonators and white phosphorous bombs as the ship continues to break up. Those smaller bombs being washed up on the tide.

Lord Harris’s question had some impact though.

For in June 2020, Whitehall announced that contractors supervised by the MOD would be enlisted to cut the ship’s masts to the waterline so the removed weight would minimise hull stress.

So even experts are totally at odds as to the fate of the ammunition. Even a professional specialist body, the Institute of Explosive Engineers asserts in its report that ‘the ship is a unique and significant problem, and there are no easy answers.’ (5)

Which just about concludes that the fate of a large area of south-east England rests upon a balance of probabilities.

Lord Harris’ closing statement warns that: ‘should things go horribly wrong, it would result in one of the biggest buck-passing exercises in history’ (6)

One thing is for sure – if all that ammunition was submerged closer to the Houses of Parliament it would have been removed long ago.