As Wendy Webster noted, several film versions were made of the Victory Parade on 8 June 1946 – including films by Castleton-Knight Productions, Chelsea Colour Films, and British Movietone News – and the BBC reopened its television service with a two-hour broadcast of the ceremony (Webster, 2005, 59). However, the Colonial Film Unit’s production differs in catering exclusively for overseas audiences.

In an editorial in September 1946 Colonial Cinema commented that ‘all the reports we have received from overseas about Victory Parade confirm the opinion of those who saw it in London before its distribution. Colonial audiences were delighted to see their compatriots so well covered, and there are calls for many additional copies for wider showing’. The editorial suggested that ‘the film will remain a valuable documentary of the historic parade’ and added that ‘there is little doubt that supplementary films dealing in more detail with the activities of the contingents in each area will prove equally popular’ (Colonial Cinema, September 1946, 47).

Under the title ‘Victory March’, these additional films comprised of four films made for East Africa, West Africa, the Middle East and the Far East and were intended to ‘give the maximum possible coverage to the contingents from the territories’. Colonial Cinema noted though that it was not possible ‘to give as much as one would like to any particular territory’ because of ‘the technical exigencies of cutting … so if the coverage should seem meagre in some respects, it is not by design, but because circumstances prevent it being as full as we should like’ (Colonial Cinema, September 1946, 68). 

Victory Parade was exhibited throughout Africa, and on occasion in unusual exhibition sites. For example, Colonial Cinema mentions the ‘film of the London Victory Parade gaining great applause’ when put on in the prisons of Freetown, Sierra Leone (Colonial Cinema, September 1947, 64).

Victory Parade shows the camps at which approximately 18,000 troops were housed (The Times, 6 April 1946, 4). Areas of Hyde Park, Regent’s Park and Kensington Gardens were all closed to the public in the weeks leading up the parade, with a number of dignitaries visiting the camps – including the King and the Royal Family who visited Kensington Gardens two days before the parade. The colonial contingent at the parade was expected to be ‘more than 1,400 strong’ and The Times subsequently reported on their involvement within the parade (The Times, 3 May 1946, 3). ‘Hundreds of men and women from the Colonial Empire followed’, the paper reported, ‘their khaki and the swing of their arms the symbols of their common allegiance and discipline. Every type of crown government was represented, many stages of civilization and independence, years of training, education and example’ (The Times, 10 May, 9).

Contemporary reports emphasised the camaraderie amongst the troops and this was also noted by one of the African soldiers who wrote about his visit to London for the parade. T.K. Impahim, from the Gold Coast, suggested that his experiences in London shaped his attitude towards his own country. ‘I had stayed in England and I had experienced the treatment the English people gives us in our own country and over here. There was tremendous difference’. Impahim argued that in England ‘I was on equal terms with my fellow soldiers… and when I came back to my own country to be discriminated against by this very white man, it was very annoying’. These experiences, he suggested, encouraged him to ‘join together and fight for independence because if we get our independence, we will be in a position to change so many things’ (Israel, 1987, 167).