SS Richard Montgomery

Visible masts of the wreck of Richard Montgomery
History
Name:	Richard Montgomery
Namesake:	Richard Montgomery
Builder:	St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company, 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:	422 ft 10 in (128.88 m)
Beam:	57 ft 0 in (17.37 m)
Draft:	27 ft 10 in (8.48 m)
Depth of hold:	34 ft 10 in (10.62 m)
Propulsion:	Two oil-fired boilers, triple-expansion steam engine, single screw, 2,500 hp (1,900 kW)
Speed:	11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Complement:	45

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 sandbank in the Thames Estuary, near Sheerness, England in 1944 with around 1,400 tonnes (1,500 short tons) of explosives on board, which continues to be a hazard to the area.

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 Ulster soldier who was killed during the American Revolution.

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

She 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 come under Allied control on 27 July 1944 during the Battle of Normandy.

When Richard Montgomery arrived off Southend, she 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, an area designated as the Great Nore Anchorage.