WAR PAGEANTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24250, 16 April 1942, Page 6

WAR PAGEANTRY

PARADE BEIRUT COLOURFUL FREE FRENCH NEW ZEALAND BRIGADES (N ZE.F. Official News Service) BEIRUT. April 31 Arabs, Syrians, French and British. cheered with enthusiasm as New Zealand, Free French and Royal Air Force troops marched in a ceremonial parade through the streets of the old Syrian city of Beirut this week. It was by far the most colourful parade in which the New Zealand troops have taken part in the Middle East. Major-General Sir Bernard Freyberg took the salute as hundreds of New Zealanders and French cavalry and mechanised units marched past. The General was cheered by the crowd as he walked down the steps of his hotel on to .the specially erected dais, which was the saluting base. The town was gay with bunting, Union Jacks and the flags of the Free French forces flying side by side from many buildings. Thousands lined the five-mile route through the city streets and when the infantry marched past with bayonets fixed, followed by a mobile column, great cheers rang through the old city. An ovation greeted the commander of the parade, a newly-promoted brigadier. At the head of the procession was the New Zealand Brigade Band. The resplendent Free French cavalry added a touch of pageantry that seemed almost out of place in a world of mechanised war. Along came the guns of a New Zealand field artillery regiment, followed by those of the New Zealand Anti-tank Regiment and infantrymen from Auckland, Welling-, ton and the South Island. At the end of the procession came two ambulances, with two New Zealand Sisters alongside the drivers. Soldier onlookers —French, British, Australian and New Zealand—cheered and sprang 7 to attention as the girls of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service wen; by.