STANDARDS were lowered, heads bowed, and wreaths laid at a moving service on Thursday to remember the dead of a horrific wartime disaster off the Pembrokeshire coast.
Many attended the April 25 service at Freshwater West to remember the 79 servicemen killed when two Landing Craft Guns sank in 1943.
April 25, 1943 saw two landing craft and a rescue boat sink with the loss of all lives in Freshwater Bay.
The two landing craft, with 73 sailors and Royal Marines, were en route between Harland and Wolff's shipyard in Belfast and Falmouth.
Only three people survived the disaster and many bodies were never recovered.
Six crew members from HMS Rosemary also died when their rescue vessel was engulfed by a huge wave.
In 2000 a simple stone memorial was erected in the car park at Freshwater West.
For the 70th anniversary of the disaster in 2013, two new plaques bearing the names of all servicemen that died were commissioned.
Dignitaries from across Pembrokeshire, plus veterans and members of the Royal British Legion, were among those who attended this, the 76th anniversary of the disaster.
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