The American Liberty ship was named after an Irish-American soldier who died in the American Revolutionary War

by Alan McGuinness

A team of divers will go into the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery, for the first time in a decade, this week.

They will assess the condition of the ship, which has lain in the Thames Estuary since sinking in 1944 with thousands of tonnes of explosives on board.

It became grounded on a bank and broke in two.

Annual surveys are carried out by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and a spokesman said this work was an "additional survey".

He added that the team would be looking at the thickness of the hull, among other things.

The Medway Otter will be anchored within the buoyed area around the wreck, off the coast of Sheppey.

The operation is expected to last about a week.

.showed that "significant structural collapse" was not imminentThe last annual survey to be released, from 2010,

Because of its explosive cargo many fear the Montgomery is an accident waiting to happen, and warn of dire consequences if the munitions were to blow up.

Doomsday claims include predictions the blast would be one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever, cause shockwaves that would blow out windows as far away as east London and cause Britain’s first tsunami.

It is seen as one of the main stumbling blocks in the way of a Thames estuary airport.

.could be as high as £30 millionAs we revealed earlier this month, the bill for making the Montgomery safe

Bomb disposal expert Michael Fellows said dealing with the ship was feasible, but could take up to 18 months.

He claimed the MCA surveys were meaningless, because they did not assess the potency of the munitions on board.