VICTORY PARADE PLANS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24867, 6 May 1946, Page 5

VICTORY PARADE PLANS

FIREWORKS DISPLAY PROPOSED (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, May 2. The programme for Victory Day in London provides for a fireworks display after the. parade. The morning parade of Empire troops through the London streets, with the King taking the salute in the Mall, will be followed by an aqqatic display on the Thames and then by a fireworks display, when it is intended to fire off the biggest rocket ever made, to signal the end of the celebrations. It will be in a 25in diameter shell which, on bursting, will develop the light of 40,000.000 candlepower. The King and Queen, accompanied by the Princesses, will start the evening celebrations by sailing in an Admiralty barge from Chelsea to the landing stage in Westminster. Their arrival at 10 p.m. will be the signal to start a two hours’ water pageant. T./enty coloured searchlights will light up the sky and for 15 minutes thousands of fireworks will be let off.

London will be lit up with 66 searchlights and 2545 floodlights. Thirty-five Of London’s principal landmarks, including Buckingham Palace, Nelson‘s Column, and St. Paul’S Cathedral, will be illuminated. Aircraft of Bomber Command flying at 6000 feet will be picked out by searchlights. In the Thames there will be 20 warships of the Royal Navy, all illuminated with thousands of coloured lights. The floodlighting will be done with novel effects. Red, green, amber, purple; gold, blue, and white will be used. Buckingham Palace will be floodlit with purple, the Admiralty Arch in pale blue, and the colouring for St. James’ Palace will mostly be red. The fountains in Trafalgar Square will have underwater floodlights in red, white, and blue, white will be the colour for Westminster Abbey, red for Lambeth Palace, and white for Windsor Castle. A camp in Kensington Gardens now being erected by German prisoners will provide accommodation for 16,000 Empire troops.