Isle Of Sheppey Wreck & WW2 Structures

[STEVIEBOY1]

I went to the Isle Of Sheppey last weekend, I do visit there from time to time and this time, when I was on the seafront at Sheerness, I could not see the masts that used to come above the sea from the wreck of the ship "Richard Montgomery" which sank there in 1944. I think it was bringing munitions to the UK from the US. Have these masts rusted away I wonder? They were clearly there some 2 or 3 years ago, the tide was low last weeked when I was there, but even at high tide these used to be visable. I wonder if they are trying to do some salvage on that ship to make it safer.?

I also note that you can still clearly see the old off shore forts built in the war, that was quite an achievement then, I understand there were several clusters of these and those in each cluster where linked. It must of been pretty scary if you were stationed there. I see too, that a wind farm has now been built off shore in the same area, I guess the sea bed must be pretty solid in that region. All these structures, old and new, can be seen from Sheerness and also further along the Island's coast from Warden Point and Leysdown. There used to be a couple of WW2, concrete structures on the cliffs at Warden, I used to play on one many many years ago. One you can't see now and the other is at the bottom of the cliffs. There has been alot of coastal erosion there sadly.

 

[466.networkers]

The Montgomery is still there, IIRC they cut away some of the masts a few years back, can't remember why ...

It's checked by the MOD and Peel Ports (owner of Sheerness Docks) every few years in case something's moved/changed and the munitions could explode ...

 

[EM2]

I also note that you can still clearly see the old off shore forts built in the war, that was quite an achievement then, I understand there were several clusters of these and those in each cluster where linked. It must of been pretty scary if you were stationed there.

These are the Maunsell Army Forts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunsell_Forts#Maunsell_army_forts, the two that you can see are Shivering Sands and Red Sands. Red Sands is complete, except for the catwalks between the towers, whereas one tower at Shivering Sands collapsed when it was hit by a ship. The third fort, Nore, was dismantled in 1959-60, again after a ship collided with it.
There is a project to restore Red Sands http://www.project-redsand.com/ and I must admit, if I'd won that £161 million on the Euromillions a few weeks back, I'd have bought it!

 

[chuffchuff]

remains of Fort Nore

http://subterrain.org.uk/maunsell/part5.html

 

[Ivo]

The Richard Montgomery is still there, as others have ascertained, and is still visible from this side of the Thames.

For anyone interested in explosives (ha ha), the wreck cannot be removed or detonated in case the explosives react to such actions [which is obvious in the latter case]. If the vessel went up a wave several metres high, possibly even a tsunami, would be generated and head towards both banks of the Thames, decimating the lowland areas of the Isle of Sheppey and South East Essex. Such an explosion is also estimated to be powerful enough to generate sound waves capable of smashing three of every four windows in Sheerness...

 

[eastwestdivide]

There's a fair amount of info on the Richard Montgomery on the Kent History Forum at
http://www.kenthistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=6051.0
including pics of old documents discussing the situation at various times over the years

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Many thanks to everybody above for this most useful and interesting information & links. Rgds.