Richard Montgomery (ship)

**Richard Montgomery**
	Visible masts of the Richard Montgomery
Ship data
flag	United States
Ship type	General cargo ship
class	Liberty freighter
Shipyard	St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company
Keel laying	March 15, 1943
Launch	June 15, 1943
Commissioning	July 29, 1943
Whereabouts	sunk, August 20, 1944

The Richard Montgomery was an American Liberty freighter , the wreck of which is still lying off Sheerness in the Thames estuary .

history

The ship named after Richard Montgomery was built in 1943 by the St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company in Jacksonville, Florida and put into service on July 29th.

In 1944, the ship transported around 7,000 tons of ammunition across the Atlantic as part of the HX-301 convoy . On August 20, 1944, the ship anchored in the Thames estuary in order to then join a convoy towards Cherbourg (France). During the waiting time, the anchor could not hold the ship in position and the Richard Montgomery drifted on a shoal off Sheerness.

In the following days, part of the cargo was recovered during rescue operations. As the ship broke apart and the holds filled with water, the remaining cargo could no longer be salvaged. This ammunition, which is still in the wreck, contains around 1400 tons of the TNT explosive , including a .:

0.286 pieces of 910 kg bombs (144 t),
4,082 pieces of 450 kg bombs of various types (750 t),
3,332 230 kg bombs (305 t),
1,500 115 kg bombs (84 t),
18 t cluster and fragmentation bombs ,
31 t amplifier loads ,
65 t smoke and phosphorus incendiary bombs ,
03 t pyrotechnic signal rockets .

(The weight amounts given are the amounts of explosives.)

today

Restricted area buoy and wreck (left)

The wreck lies broken in two and is still three kilometers from the town of Sheerness. A monitored restricted area was set up around the ship .

Since it is assumed that the risk of an explosion during a rescue attempt is greater than that of a spontaneous explosion, rescue attempts are not made. (During the recovery of the Kielce , also loaded with ammunition, the cargo exploded on July 22, 1967 near Folkestone .)

future

In the immediate vicinity of the wreck there are possible locations for a new airfield or for a liquid gas tanker terminal.

Web links

Commons : Richard Montgomery - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

↑ Report on the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery , p. 20 (pdf), Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Southampton, November 2000

swell

St. Johns River Shipbuilding construction dates

51.465833333333 0.78666666666667Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 57 ″ N , 0 ° 47 ′ 12 ″ E

[1] Report on the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery , p. 20 (pdf), Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Southampton, November 2000