With the fall of the Burmese capital Rangoon the Allies stage a victory parade.

A podium with dignitaries and an RAF band in the foreground. Jeeps pass along the road between the band and the podium. An RAF Regiment Chevrolet lorry with a 20mm Hispano anti-aircraft gun on the bed of the lorry and a second towed behind. More distant shot showing more of the band. More RAF Regiment Chevrolets follow. View from the podium; an open staff car enters shot left-to-right. The band playing despite heavy rain. A contingent marches past with rifles at the trail arms position. The band playing; the drummers can be seen swirling their beaters. A body of troops, wearing white webbing, marches past with arms at the slope. Supreme Allied Commander, Lord Louis Mountbatten, saluting the parade. A body of men in battledress; they do not carry arms (RAF ground crew?). More men marching past with arms at the slope and Mountbatten saluting. A parade ground; men formed up in the foreground with Allied flags (British, American, RAF, French and Indian visible with others) flying in the background. Men saluting; local people in the background. Looking across the front of a unit on parade. Men remove their headdress to cheer. Air Marshal Sir Keith Park, Allied Air Commander-in-Chief, talks with the RAF band's Drum Major. Mountbatten arriving by car. Opposite angle of the march past; a cathedral in the background. RAF Regiment Chevrolets with anti-aircraft guns. Mountbatten gets back into his staff car and salutes as it drives off. In front of his vehicle is an armoured car and behind a number of motorcycles. Two RAF Spitfire fighters overhead. More footage from the parade ground. Men saluting. Looking towards Allied flags with Indian personnel in the foreground. Men cheering with headdress. A contingent of sailors marching.

Notes

This occasion also covered in stills by RAF and British Army photographers. The Army series includes an image of a mobile news broadcast van, described without any hint of irony, as 'rushed to the city that the newly liberated people...should have their first opportunity to hear the truth after years of Axis propaganda'. See related items.

This and related events also filmed in amateur footage by Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Outram Hodgkinson. See related items.

Cathedral seen is possibly St Mary's, but unable to confirm.

See also IWM PHO SE 4209 - 4214, IWM PHO CI 1401 - 1407