As a ship loading 3 million gallons of crude oil, the SS Montebello was an early casualty in World 
War II, sunk by a Japanese submarine 6 1/2 miles off the Central Coast near Cambria in 1941 barely two weeks after Pearl Harbor. The wreck was discovered in 1996, and ever since there’s been concern that the hull might rust through, unleashing a huge oil spill.
Add: Starting tomorrow, a Seattle firm hired by the Coast Guard will send an unmanned remotely-operated vehicle down to try and find out what shape the Montebello is in, the Mercury News says. A state Fish and Game official says what they may find is at this point anybody’s guess:
"We've never seen any kind of oil leakage from it. The oil could be intact or completely gone. Our assumption is that there are still 3 million gallons in that ship."
