SS Richard Montgomery

[Adam White]

The hulk of a sunken Liberty Ship sits in the Thames river estuary - you can see her masts sticking out of the water, as it's a fairly shallow wreck. Apparently she was sunk in 1944 while carrying a lot of munitions to France.

The ship ends up in the news from time to time, as there are concerns that she might explode - there are a lot of people living in low-lying areas nearby and it could possibly be devastating if the remaining cargo were to explode. There have been a few scares over the years, as ship have almost hit the wreck.

Anyway...I was reading in the news today that there were fresh concerns about the state of the ship and cargo, as it is apparently breaking up. The issue was recently brought up in the House of Lords and a transcript is available here:

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2019-07-03a.1499.2

What caught my attention was the following:

The SS "Richard Montgomery" was built in 1943 by the St Johns River Shipbuilding Company of Jacksonville, Florida, which built 82 Liberty ships for the US Government over three years.

Glad to see Jacksonville get a shout out in Parliament!