IMPRESSIVE AIR DISPLAY AT MOSCOW MAY DAY

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28267, 3 May 1957, Page 11

IMPRESSIVE AIR DISPLAY AT MOSCOW MAY DAY

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

MOSCOW, May 1. The May Day fly-past over Moscow today comprised an air fleet of 178 Soviet jet and turbo-prop aircraft—the largest and most impressive show seen at Moscow for several years, according to foreign observers.

The observers said, however, that the fly-past contained no new types, and Soviet delta-wing bombers did not appear. The fly-past began with a fourjet swept-wing bomber—the flag ship of the air fleet—escorted by four MIG fighters. Nine fourengined jet and nine four-engined turbo-prop bombers then sailed swiftly across the cloudless sky at 1000 ft, followed by 45 twin-jet medium bombers. These were followed by 50 Yak twin-engined allweather machines.

After a brief pause 60 day interceptor fighters, identified by foreign observers as MIG 19s flashed over Red Square in formation.

Security police moved among the crowd in the Red Square warning visitors not to use cameras.

Two American news cameramen who attempted to take newsreel photographs of the fly-past from outside Red Square had their films confiscated. All the members of the Communist Party Praesidium, led by Mr N. S. Khrushchev, the Party First Secretary, took up positions on the walls of Lenin’s tomb in the Red Square to review the parade. The danger of an outbreak of atomic war had been brought nearer by the American decision to base atomic formations in other countries and the refusal to accept Russia’s nuclear disarmament offer, the Soviet Defence Minister (Marshal Georgi Zhukov) said in his speech at the parade. Russia’s defensive capacity, which already had “all the modern combat means necessary to defeat any kind of aggressor,” would be strengthened, he said. Parade In China

At Peking, 500,000 Chinese marched past the Communist Head of State (Mr Mao Tse-tung) and President Klementi Voroshilov of Russia in a mammoth May Day parade. In a special Chinese language broadcast Peking Radio said that foreign guests from 46 countries were on the reviewing stand to watch the parade. They included Government delegations, trade union groups, women’s missions, scientific groups, and trade missions from Britain, Australia, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, India, Indonesia, Japan, North Korea. New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, and other countries. May Day celebrations or parades

were held in almost all European capitals today.

At Vienna. May Day celebrations began last night with a big Socialist torchlight procession through the streets.

In Belgrade, Jugoslav troops and more than 50,000 athletes took part in the May Day parade. President Tito stood in the reviewing stand as several squadrons of jet planes flew overhead. In Athens Greek workers started a 24-hour strike today to mark May Day, but the Ministry of Labour had proclaimed today a “working day.” The strikers will receive no wages. In Nicosia and other towns of Cyprus labourers downed tools today in celebration of May Day. Traditional May Day processions were not held as all public gatherings of this kind are banned under the emergency regulation*.