THE Milford Haven Town Council will be holding a Memorial Service to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day on The Rath on Thursday, 6th June 2024, at 8:45 pm. The beacon will be lit at 9:15 pm.

D-Day, which took place on 6th June 1944, marked a pivotal moment in World War II. It was the day when Allied forces launched a massive invasion on the beaches of Normandy, France. This operation, known as Operation Overlord, involved thousands of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other Allied nations. The invasion was a significant turning point in the war, leading to the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi occupation.

The 80th Anniversary of D-Day holds profound meaning for many, particularly for those who lived through the war and the families of those who served. It is a time to reflect on the immense sacrifices made by the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who took part in the operation. It is also an opportunity to honour the bravery and determination of the veterans who survived and to remember those who did not return.

As the years pass, the number of surviving veterans dwindles, making commemorations like these even more poignant. The 80th anniversary serves as a reminder of the enduring legacy of those who fought for freedom and the importance of remembering their contributions to history.

The Memorial Service in Milford Haven will provide a moment for the community to come together in remembrance. The lighting of the beacon will symbolise the light of hope and the enduring spirit of those who fought for a better future. The council encourages all residents to attend the service and pay their respects to the heroes of D-Day.

DID YOU KNOW?

During the lead up to D-Day, part of Milford Haven was taken over by the US Navy as a place where they could dock landing craft as well as make repairs to these craft. The crews would also have been stationed nearby in the town, and a Hospital in Hakin was set up with a hut encampment. The nearby Pier at Newton Noyes was also regularly used by the US Navy.

Landing Ship, Tanks (LST) were often put into Dry Docks to carry out repairs and preparation for the D-Day Landings. The base was the largest Advanced Amphibious Base build by the American Engineers and around 1,000 servicemen and women were stationed at the base during 1943 and 1944.

EVERY single argument claiming that NASA faked the Moon landings has been discredited. But even today, 50 years later, people discuss conspiracy claims online, on television programmes and around the dinner table.

Herald moon fact: With a powerful amateur telescope, you can see the Apollo landing sites and, if you look at the photos from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, you can spot the remnants of the Apollo missions yourself.

Were the Moon landings faked?

If you find yourself in a debate questioning whether humankind first stepped on the Moon on 20 July 1969, the chances are that you are woefully underprepared. Most people take it as gospel that the US government, NASA, the 12 astronauts in total who have walked on the Moon, and the 400,000 people involved in the Apollo programme would have neither the will nor the way to fake one of humanity’s greatest ever achievements.

But there are those who think the landings were a hoax. They claim the US government faked Apollo 11 and later missions either to deal a crucial blow to the USSR in the Space Race, or to boost NASA funding, or to divert attention away from the Vietnam War. The argument for any of these viewpoints rests on finding evidence that the landings were faked.

And more often than not, people point out peculiarities in specific images or videos to deal the critical blow. If someone uses these oddities as evidence, what do you say? Here are the most common arguments that support this view, and why each of them is wrong.

Evidence of the moon landings include items left there, reflectors installed on the surface, and lunar rocks brought back to Earth.

Photographic evidence

One of the most popular conspiracy arguments is that there are never any stars in Apollo photos. Free from Earth’s light pollution and hazy atmosphere, you would expect to see thousands of stars in all the astronauts’ images. Unfortunately, this argument rests on the photos being snapped during the lunar night. All manned missions to the Moon took place in sunny daytime. This meant starlight lost the battle against the very bright surface of the Moon, too dim to show up in photos.

Another common argument is that the crosshairs that appear in many Apollo images sometimes appear to be behind objects in the photos. If the images were real, this would be impossible, suggesting someone painted them on. But testing here on Earth has shown that the brightly lit objects make the crosshairs appear fainter. When these images are copied or scanned some of this detail is lost completely, giving the effect that the crosshair is behind the object in certain shots.

Others point to an oddity in a photo of a Moon rock taken during the Apollo 16 mission. There appears to be a ‘C’ written on it, like a lettered movie prop. Again, analysing the original photo there is no anomaly – the ‘C’ isn’t there. Most likely it was a piece of hair or thread introduced during copying.

A more subtle argument that the landings were faked is based on various misunderstandings of NASA equipment and lunar physics. A well-known example is the American flag that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin placed on the Moon. It appears to flutter in the wind in some photos. How could this happen when the Moon has no wind?

In fact, it isn’t fluttering at all. A horizontal rod at the top of the pole holds the flag unfurled. This makes it look like the wind is stopping it from hanging down. And there is a fluttering effect because the weak gravity on the Moon is not strong enough to uncrumple the flag. After a little waving while the astronauts planted the flags into the Moon’s surface, they have remained still ever since.

Fried by radiation

Perhaps the most convincing argument that the landings were faked has to do with something called the Van Allen belts. These are two giant doughnut-shaped belts surrounding the Earth. They are made of highly energetic charged particles from the solar wind. Some people believe humans couldn’t have passed through these belts without being exposed to lethal doses of radiation.

This was a genuine concern before the Apollo missions. And it is the reason scientists behind Apollo 11 made sure they protected the astronauts as best they could. They insulated the spacecraft from radiation with an aluminium shell. And they chose a trajectory from the Earth to the Moon which minimised the amount of time spent in the Van Allen belts.

Readings from the nine Apollo missions that reached the Moon showed the astronauts’ average radiation exposure was 0.46 radiation-absorbed dose (rad). This proved NASA was right to shield the astronauts from radiation. Though it’s less than that experienced by some nuclear energy workers, 0.46 rad is around 10 times more than the radiation exposure of medical professionals who routinely work with x-ray and radiotherapy machines.

Proof we walked on the Moon

Of course, until we return to the Moon there will always be anomalies and oddities in the records that can spark new claims that the Moon landings were faked. But it is the sheer size and variety of this record that proves every one of these claims to be false.

From the Apollo Moon missions, there are 8,400 publicly available photos, thousands of hours of video footage, a mountain of scientific data, and full transcripts and audio recordings of all air-to-ground conversations. We even have 382 kilograms of Moon rock that Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth. These rocks have been independently verified as lunar by laboratories around the world, ruling out a US conspiracy.

If this is not enough to convince the most hardened sceptic, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) might sway them. Today, LRO takes high-resolution pictures of the lunar surface from a low orbit. During its mission, it has captured the landing sites and the abandoned descent modules and rovers from the Apollo missions. And its resolution is so good it has picked up the dark squiggly paths that the astronauts’ footprints made. Spacecraft from China, India and Japan have also spotted these landing sites, providing further independent verification of the landings.

A final nail in the coffin of the Moon hoax theories is a simple instrument installed 50 years ago by Apollo 11. During their day on the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin planted a lunar laser ranging retroreflector array on the surface. It’s still operational today and allows us to reflect lasers off of it and measure the distance to the Moon down to the centimetre. We simply couldn’t do this if we hadn’t visited the Moon.

ANGLE LIFEBOAT station, one of the busiest in west Wales, is seeing operations from its site in the village “becoming increasingly challenging” to sustain due to its remote location and a declining population, the RNLI has said.

Formed in 1868, the station owes its launch to the generosity of a prominent north England philanthropist, Titus Salt junior, of Bradford.

Fears have been expressed locally that the station could be downgraded in favour of activities being run from Milford Haven.

An RNLI spokesperson said: “It is becoming increasingly challenging for the RNLI to sustain operations at Angle Lifeboat Station due to its remote location and declining population.

“Since 2012, a local operating procedure has been in place for Angle’s all-weather lifeboat to collect crew from Milford Haven when attending incidents to ensure adequate crewing levels.

“The RNLI has recently provided extra support to crew based in Milford Haven, developing more infrastructure and dedicated training for volunteers.

“Angle’s all-weather lifeboat is currently based on a swing mooring to ensure it can be launched quickly and effectively in an emergency, due to limited amount of shore crew with daytime availability at Angle.

“Supplementing this arrangement, the RNLI has been operating from Milford Haven three days a week in order to maintain our lifesaving effect. We are working with Milford Haven Port Authority with a view to extending this arrangement to a 24/7 service for a three-to-six-month trial.

“We will still require the services of the Angle RNLI volunteer crew, but continue to review the situation in order to ensure the long-term viability of the station.

“The RNLI is committed to ensuring an effective lifesaving effect in the Cleddau Estuary and surrounding area and is grateful to Milford Haven Port Authority for their ongoing support.”

The first lifeboat at Angle, Katherine, launched seven times in 20 years, saving 22 lives, before being replaced in 1888 by the Henry Martin Harvey, which, in 1894, took part in its most famous rescue, of the passengers and crew of the ‘whisky ship’ Loch Shiel.

The ship was on a voyage from her home port of Glasgow to Australia, when she ran into heavy weather in the Irish Sea and tried to take shelter in the Milford Haven Waterway.

The Angle RNLI lifeboat was alerted and set out at 10.45pm, but by this time the ship was sinking and six of the men had taken refuge in the mizzen top.

Other members of the crew and passengers had crawled out along the ship and taken shelter on the rocks of Thorn Island.

The lifeboat rescued the six men from the mizzen top before heading to the far side of the island, hauling all 27 survivors to safety.

By daylight, the Loch Shiel had begun to break up and her cargo – which included 100 percent proof whisky – came ashore at West Angle Bay.

While customs officers quickly came to claim the whisky, much of it mysteriously disappeared, with local women said to have smuggled bottles from the beach in their long underwear.

In late 1929 the Merchant ship Molesey left Manchester for Cardiff when it was struck by a 70mph gale and was swept into the treacherous water between Skomer Island and the mainland, before being ground on the rocks off the Midland Island and began to sink.

In an hour-long operation 28 survivors of the Molesey where saved.

Earlier this month, May 2024, the lifeboat was called out four times in just two days.