NAVAL SPECTACLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 49, 26 January 1938, Page 9

NAVAL SPECTACLE.

SQUADRONS IN PORT,

SYDNEY, Jan. 25

Aflame with colour and seething with life, Sydney, all ready for her epochal birthday, awoke to-day to the crash of naval guns as salutes were when eight visiting warships steamed into the harbour.

Crowds watched the stately ships move to their moorings from the headlands and from every other vantage point.

The first of the grey advancing squadrons was the New Zealand cruiser Achilles, which glided unostentatiously to her berth. Then came the French sloop, Regault de Genouilly, tiie Italian cruiser Montecuccoli, the Dutch sloop, Flores, and finally, after a short interval, the American squadron, the Trenton. Memphis, Louisville, and Milwaukee.

Within an hour of berthing, the commanders went ashore to pay the customary official calls and officers and sailors were mingling with the crowds in the streets.

An equally stirring spectacle was the arrival of five Royal Air Force flying-boats,with an escort of Australian Air Force and Naval ’planes. As they swept over the city, flying in V formation, traffic came to a standstill and crowds gazed skyward at one of the largest flotillas of aircraft seen at one time over the harbour.

Visiting flving-boats soon landed, but Air Force ’planes, supplemented by 10 seaplanes, catapulted from the American cruisers, continued to soar over the city and suburbs in perfect formation, providing a memorable and impiessive sight, a fitting curtain-raiser to to-morrow’s notable pageant.