Marshall Rokossovskiy commands the parade, marshall Zhukov takes the parade.
June, 24th, 1945.
My Father and Grandfather marched in this parade. Father was a cadet in Leningrad Naval Engineering College, he was in a joint parade crew and marched on Red Square parades 12 times. Grandfather was there too, he was an artillery captain, Guards Mortar Corps. Unfortunately I don't know in which formation he marched.
I need a better copy of this film to try finding Father's face: he must be easy to spot, he's in Black Sea Fleet batallion, right-hand, wearing a cap with a visor. They marched as Black Sea Fleet because sailors had an epic fist-fight in barracks in Moscow, so they had to bring fire brigades to cool them down.
Grandmother said that Grandfather got a new parade uniform made from English wool, and it was completely spoiled because of the rain: they stood in the rain for several hours.
It's interesting that the colour film was bought in the US, and operators were limited with film.
Another intersting thing: in Khruschev's time Lavrentiy Beriya was completely erased from the film, there was an empty space in a line on the Mausoleum where he stood. Colour version was first shown on TV on May 9th 1985, and it was probably the first time when Beriya was shown on TV.
