AFTER a successful first full visitor season, the Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre will be closing for two winter months - December and January.

The Centre, in the Royal Dockyard Chapel, will close as from Monday November 30.

However, it will open especially for parties already pre-booked and also extends an invitation to organisations and groups who wish to visit during these winter months.

The Sunderland Trust, which opened the Heritage Centre in 2014, is working with its terrific team of volunteers to prepare for the 2016 season.

One moment in history this year was especially remembered on Armistice Day, November 11. It was 75 years ago this month - on November 12- that a Mark I Sunderland flying boat, T9044, sank off the town, and this iconic aircraft has become central to the stories which are told at the Heritage Centre.

Two Sunderlands sank in an 80 mph gale that day.

T9044 disappeared without trace, happily without any airmen on board. The other Sunderland, N6138, was washed ashore at Hobbs Point and tragically two airmen on board were drowned.

Those airmen - Sergeant Walter Duncan and Corporal Frederick John Henry Clarkson - were especially remembered when volunteers and staff came together for the two minutes silence on November 11.

A special display, created by Eleanor Evans, remembers the 75th anniversary of the sinking of T9044. It includes a Sunderland suitcase filled with everyday items and RAF equipment which flying boat personnel carried on board - and a dressing gown.

The suitcase also recalls a mystery which one day may indeed be solved. One of T9044’s pilots, Pilot Officer Norman Chapman, lost his own suitcase when T9044 sank. This included a silk dressing gown, a wedding present from his wife. Maybe, divers who regularly visit the remains of T9044 off ‘PD’ will discover the remains of Norman’s suitcase.