It was the last great peacetime gathering of warships ever staged, and it marked the highlight of Victoria old salt William Guy’s career at sea.
But the June 15, 1953 Coronation Review of the Fleet with over 300 ships from around the world, has been mostly forgotten. Its 60th anniversary this month went past unremarked.
“Like everything else, it is disappearing into the past,” said Guy, now 80.
“People are not interested,” he said recently at his home overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The 1953 Coronation Review of the Fleet at Spithead, off Portsmouth, England, was the Royal Navy’s signature event to mark the coronation of the Queen. The only gathering of warships to surpass it in numbers occurred during the Second World War, 800-odd vessels gathered for the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.
Unlike the June 2, 1953, Coronation, which had contingents of various units from around the Commonwealth, army, navy, air force, even the RCMP, the Review of the Fleet was strictly a Navy event.
A fleet review is a British practice hundreds of years old. Ships gather in one place to be observed and inspected by a reigning monarch.
And fleet reviews have also customarily seen friendly invitations extended around the world. The Coronation Review was no different.
Vessels appeared from countries such as Brazil, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Turkey, the U.S. and even Russia, then the USSR.
The appearance of a Russian navy cruiser, the Sverdlov, caused a stir. At the height of the Cold War, the appearance of any surface vessel from the secretive Soviet Union was remarkable.
The Royal Canadian Navy sent six ships to participate, including an aircraft carrier, HMCS Magnificent.
Guy, was a 20-year-old Able Seaman, a signalman serving on HMCS Quebec.
He remembers the sight of all the vessels lined up at Spithead with their bows pointing the same way and flags all decorating their lines.
When the new Queen was taken around the assembled vessels, crews all dressed in their Number 1 best uniforms lined the railings of the vessels.
At night, the ships picked out their outlines by stringing lights. And all at once in the early evening, the lights were flicked on. Later, after dark, they would flick them all off.
Fireworks were lit, and unleashed to tumble off the decks of the eight aircraft carriers assembled.
“Picture eight aircraft carriers, all in line, with fireworks cascading over their flight decks like a waterfall,” said Guy.
“You will never see so many aircraft carriers together again, it would be too big a target and too expensive,” he said.
Guy went on to have a 30-year career in the navy and retired a lieutenant commander. Afterwards, he sailed in what he still calls “The Dogwood Fleet” as a captain in B.C. Ferries, retiring at 65.
But he has never forgotten the Coronation Review. In 2001, he even attempted to begin a move to award Coronation medals to all sailors who took part, instead of the few handed out to some selected sailors to mark the event. His attempt was ultimately unsuccessful.
And massive fleet reviews have now fallen out of fashion. An attempt to mount one last year in Britain to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee stalled because it was deemed too expensive.
“It’s a different world altogether now,” said Guy. “Those were the days when countries had huge navies.”
“But a marine show like that is just incredible,” he said. “And if you asked in later years any of the people who were there what was the most spectacular and interesting part of their naval career, they would all say ‘The Coronation Review.’ ”
