During the Second W orld War, German aircraft would fly up the River Thames to attack the London docks.

 In eleven months 40,000 explosives were dropped and it is estimated that one in ten failed to explode.

 Now with more people diving and fishing the Royal Navy divers get called out three times a week to deal with unexploded bombs on this coast.

The SS Richard Montgomery is an American cargo ship fully laden with explosives.

 It safely crossed the Atlantic but when it entered Sheerness  in the Thames Estuary,  a storm was starting and the ship drifted onto a sand bank.

 When the tide fell the weight of its 4,000 tonnes of bombs broke the vessel in half.

It is now lying in two pieces, full of its eroding cargo.

The Montgomery is not in an ideal spot. It ran aground in the middle of a busy waterway and is a sinister sight -the ship is partially visible with its mast still sticking out of the water.

Because of the difficulty in clearing the wreck it has been left where it sank.

 It is regularly checked by the Department of Transport, but surveys suggest that it may break up in the next nine years.

 If the Montgomery did explode, Government experts estimate that it would blow up with the force of a small atomic bomb, throwing debris 3,000 metres into the air!!!