RETURN TO THE PALACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 112, 13 May 1937, Page 10

RETURN TO THE PALACE

PROCESSION THREE MILES LONG

CROWNED KING AND QUEEN SHOW THEMSELVES

United Tress Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

LONDON, May 12. During the Coronation the great procession to escort the newlycrowned King and Queen back to Buckingham Palace by the extended route along the Victoria Embankment, Northumberland Avenue', Trafalgar Square, Regent Street, Oxford Street, and Hyde Park had been forming in the neighbourhood of the Abbey. It was nearly three miles long and took forty minutes to pass. It included thirteen military bands, after the first of which marched the contingents, with sloped rifles and glittering bayonets, of the picturesque forces which maintain the Empire's frontiers in distant lands. British officers and dark-skinned Sepoys, King's African Rifles in khaki with the tall red fez headgear, preceded similar units from Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Nyassaland, Gambia, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast, a camel corps unit from Somaliland, Arab levies from Aden and Transjordania, regulars and volunteers from Malta, the West Indies, Guiana,' Honduras, Ceylon, the Falkland Islands, Hong Kong, Strait Settlements, and Burma in a bewildering array of races and uniforms. Thereafter marched South Rhodesians, Newfoundlanders, and a hundred South' Africans, among whom were kilted representatives of the Scottish regiments and veterans of the Zulu, Matabele, South African, and Great Wars. New Zealand and Australian Troops

Major Weir, mounted, attended by Captain Andrew, V.C., rode at the head of a compact body of New Zealanders, marching, like the other dismounted units, in eights, a naval detachment bringing up the rear. Next came the Australians. Seeing again those once well-known Anzac uniforms, thousands of spectators must have recalled the heroic exploits at Gallipoli and in the stricken fields of France. Picturesque parties of Canadians and Indians made a gallant show. Then, to the skirling pipes of the Highland Light Infantry, marched in a great column of eights beneath a forest of bayonets four representatives from all the British regular infantry regiments, successors to>,those British units which throughout three centuries have built up and maintained the Empire. Territorial battalions and batteries, whose worth was proved in the Great War, followed. The Scottish forces gave picturesque relief to the scene, many of the men being kilted and marching with the Stirling swing. The Tank Corps, in black with berets, gave a new touch to the spectacle. Then followed the cavalry procession which had already marched to the Abbey, parties of Royal Marines, and naval gun detachments. The.4oo armed sailors, marching with seamanlike crispness, recalled the naval might upon which the Empire rests. Cheered by the Multitudes The Dominion Premiers, with escorts preceded by Horse Guards, arid attending a glass'coach in which Queen Mary and the little Princesses were riding, everywhereywhere received multitudinous cheers. The King's Colonial, Dominion, and Indian cavalcades rode ahead of the .golden-coach in which their Majesties, now crowned—the King wearing the lighter Imperial Crown —and in their robes of state, showed themselves to their people, receiving such a welcome as' London had not, known for, many years.