New warning about ‘Doomsday wreck’ at the bottom of the Thames: Bomb-laden SS Richard Montgomery may also be full of mustard gas, expert warns

A ‘Doomsday wreck’ whose bomb-filled hold threatens to unleash a tsunami in the Thames could be carrying another deadly cargo feared: mustard gas.

The SS Richard Montgomery sank in the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, Kent, in August 1944, bringing to the bottom some 1,400 tons of American bombs.

But Southend councilor Stephen Aylen fears the wreck, which is just eight miles from his constituency, was carrying a second, ‘much more sinister’ cargo: mustard gas.

He cited the example of another Liberty Ship, the SS John Harvey, which was sent to the Mediterranean with a secret shipment of murderous gas.

But the ship was sunk by the Luftwaffe off Bari, Italy, in December 1943, dislodging its deadly cargo and killing dozens while injuring hundreds.

Mr. Aylen asked, “Is there anything like that on the Montgomery?” Is there something much more sinister on that ship than we’re told?

‘Because no one wants to say exactly what it says anymore.’

Fearing that a desperate Hitler would turn to chemical weapons, the Allies sent mustard gas to Italy so they could respond quickly.

But the gas was banned by the Geneva Protocol and was sent with such secrecy that its presence in Italy was not recognized even after its accidental release.

Mr Aylen argued that if Hitler was thought desperate enough to use chemical weapons after the Allied invasion of Italy, the situation for him in August 1944 was even worse.

D-Day had taken place in June and Hitler had authorized his troops to withdraw from Normandy just days before the SS Richard Montgomery sank.

Mr Aylen said: ‘I could maybe put two and two together and make five here, but the point is, if they were going to take the gas to Italy, why wouldn’t they take it after D-Day?

‘Hitler must have been desperate.

“If they brought it to Italy thinking Hitler would be desperate enough to use it, they must have had a good reason for doing so, and logic certainly says they would have bought it in this part of Europe as well.”

There are plans to remove the masts of the SS Richard Montgomery, which still rise above the waterline, lest they collapse onto the wreck and cause an explosion.

But the action has been repeatedly postponed and work is now not expected to start until next year.

The US government twice offered to secure the wreck – in 1948 and in 1967 – but was refused both times.

“It seems a bit strange that this has been left like this,” said Mr Aylen, an independent who served on Southend council for almost 30 years.

‘Why did they leave this obstacle there when some of the largest ships in the world are now sailing up the Thames?

“And he’s standing there, just a few feet away from where they’re going.”

He added: ‘The more you look at it, the more suspicious you become.’

It comes after a recent investigation revealed further signs of the ship collapsing, all seen in the previous year.

These include the “entire forward part of the wreck,” which lies in two halves on the bottom and leans 4 to 6 inches further east while “underpinning sediment is eroded away.”

A crack along the second cargo hold had also grown 5cm wider and 37cm longer since the previous survey, and had buckled ‘significantly’ further down.

The stern half of the ship, meanwhile, broke ‘possibly in two about half-way along its length’, with a six-metre-long section of deck collapsing by more than half a meter in a year.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport, the ministry responsible, responded to Mr Aylen’s concerns.

They said: ‘The SS Richard Montgomery is one of the best documented wrecks in the world.

“In the eighty years since the sinking, there has never been any evidence to suggest that the cargo contained mustard gas.”

A total of 628 military casualties were hospitalized with symptoms of mustard gas following the sinking of the SS John Harvey, of which 83 succumbed to their injuries.

The number of civilian casualties has not been recorded, but the number is probably even higher.