February 18, 2005 at 6:53 am
airfield is lee-on-solent – date is around the time of the coronation along with a fleet review





By: Dave Homewood - 18th February 2005 at 11:00
Those are amazing photos Paul, thanks for posting them.
I love that last shot of all the fighters lined up.
I never realised they did such a Review at the 1953 Coronation, I know they did it for George VI in 1936. Is it a standard part of the Coronation ceremony? I dear say the next one will be a little smaller.
By: Firebird - 18th February 2005 at 10:35
Here’s an interesting link listing all the aircraft at the Review:
http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/nos11.html
Very interesting.
I see from that list, that the old RNHF Sea Fury FB11 TF956 took part in this event when serving with 738 Sq, Culdrose.
By: Papa Lima - 18th February 2005 at 10:22
Here’s an interesting link listing all the aircraft at the Review:
http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/nos11.html
By: Firebird - 18th February 2005 at 09:42
Great pictures
Anyone able to ID the ships?
I’m particularly interested in what I think is a cruiser in the front of the row of carriers in picture 1.
Cheers
Andy
I was assuming it was the Royal Navy’s last battleship, HMS Vanguard. It certainley looks like Vanguard with that distinctive raised bow profile.
And how many carriers…. 😮
Superb photos, and a depressing reminder of just how much our armed services have shrunk……. 😡
By: Melvyn Hiscock - 18th February 2005 at 09:37
Great pics Paul. Especially good to look at as a ‘local’ as it is amazing how much the area has changed. I had forgotten there was a hangar in the middle of the airfield arund what became the playing field and just off Milvil Road that ran through the middle of the airfield and was still a public road up to the war.
The large house with the gabled windows in the second shot between that hangar and the hutted buidings was build by my great grandfather (as was the house that is now the coastguard building by the slipway) and at the time these were taken my grandfather was a groundsman at Lee. Her Indoors’s Mum’s house would have been visible in the second shot too – if only they had built it then! The area has changed so much, this was before the Rowner estate was built or Peel Common.
Actually it was before I was built too!
Any chance of copies . . .
Melv
By: Mark12 - 18th February 2005 at 09:27
PaulC.
What amazing photographs.
Under the glass, are there any Seafire XVIIs or 47s in that second shot?
Mark
By: Andy in Beds - 18th February 2005 at 08:28
Great pictures
Anyone able to ID the ships?
I’m particularly interested in what I think is a cruiser in the front of the row of carriers in picture 1.
Cheers
Andy
By: Paul C - 18th February 2005 at 08:02
Great pics a bit before my time but I remember my Dad taking me to my 1st airshow at lee in the 70s, vulcans and phantoms rattling my ribs, might even have some pics if I can find them.
Paul C
By: PeeBee - 18th February 2005 at 07:40
wow – thanks – more