ROYAL REVIEW OF VETERANS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 265, 5 August 1937, Page 15

ROYAL REVIEW OF VETERANS

Ex-Servicemen’s Parade “Dominion” Special Service.—By Air Mail. / London, July 10. A mass parade of ex-servicemen and women from all quarters of the country took place recently in Hyde Park before the King and Queen, a stirring ceremony of the Coronation year. Eighty thousand veterans, divided into companies of 4000, marched 20 abreast past the saluting base. All the ex-service associations were represented, and hundreds of friends and relatives cheered each company as it passed. In many countries such a parade would inevitably be associated with ideas of militarism and war. In Great Britain it was turned into- a gesture for peace. After welcoming the men with whom he served in 1917, the King, in a moving speech, said that the greatest service they could do for the welfare of mankind was to convince the world that war was a calamity both for victors and vanquished alike. The ex-service associations have done valuable work in preserving that spirit of comradeship irrespective of class that was born out of the mutual suffering and hardship of the Great War. In this parade rank was disregarded. All wore civilian clothes, except the bandsmen, who were in uniform. About a thousand blue and gold standards belonging to the British Legion, which is the largest British ex-servicemen’s association, were distributed along the lines and added to the impressiveness of the scene. The most moving spectacle was the company of 200 blind men, arm in arm, who marched by as proudly as the rest. All the Empire was represented, and there was a special review for the exservice women who had been attached to the army in various auxiliary capacities, such as nurses and ambulance drivers. Nearly a thousand ex-service-men came over in one party from Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, showing that the bond of war comradeship is stronger than domestic territorial differences.