SINGAPORE – With six large colourful floats and a salute to the nation as its finale, a new segment in 2023’s National Day Parade (NDP) will present a fun, fresh and relatable take on Total Defence, parade organisers said on Saturday.
Each of the six floats will be a larger-than-life model of an everyday object representing a pillar of Total Defence, such as an umbrella to symbolise social defence and a food cover net for digital defence.
Mr Huang Junxiang, 34, who is the creative director for the Total Defence Parade, said he wanted to find a simple way to explain the idea of Total Defence to people across different generations.
“We wanted an approach where Total Defence is something that is very relatable and everybody can connect with. So we wanted to make it a little bit more fresh and contemporary, and even fun, so that people can talk about it,” he said during a media event at the National Gallery.
Noting that a tenet of Total Defence is that everybody can play their part, Mr Huang said he hopes the floats will be a talking point for audiences.
“Next time, hopefully when people see a food cover net, they think, better practice some digital defence,” he added.
The Total Defence Parade will still include the usual display of assets from the Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore Police Force (SPF) and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) in a drive-past along St Andrew’s Road.
But the NDP organising committee said that it wanted to give a more comprehensive treatment to the other pillars of Total Defence besides military and civil defence.
There will be a total of 650 participants for the Total Defence Parade, and other components of the segment include the unfurling of a large Total Defence flag, and a salute that will be given to pay tribute to all who have contributed to Total Defence over the past five decades.
The entire segment will also be bookended by two films that tell the story of a teenage boy who comes up with the idea of using six different everyday objects to explain each pillar of Total Defence to his family.
For the asset drive-past, crowd favourites such as the Leopard battle tank will make a return.
Two new vehicles will make their NDP debuts – the new Tactical Strike Vehicle, which was jointly developed by the police and the Home Team Science and Technology Agency for the elite Special Operations Command, as well as the SCDF’s sixth-generation Light Fire Attack Vehicle, the first such vehicle to feature a fire-fighting robot.
NDP 2023, which will be held at the Padang, will also see the return of full-scale physical marching contingents for the traditional parade segment, said Colonel (Col) Lim Yu Sing, chairman for parade and ceremony.
In 2022, there was a mix of both physical and virtual marching contingents.
More than 1,700 people in 2023 will form 34 contingents, of which 10 will be from youth uniformed groups and 14 will be from local social and economic organisations, such as national water agency PUB and ride-hailing and tech giant Grab. The rest are military and civil defence contingents from the SAF, SPF and SCDF.
The Digital and Intelligence Service, SAF’s newly established fourth arm, will be making its inaugural NDP appearance as one of five Guard of Honour contingents that will escort the SAF Colours Party.
The other units making up the Guard of Honour include the commandos and naval divers.
In another first, Lieutenant-Colonel (LTC) Ragumaran Davindran, 38, will be the first Army supply officer to command an NDP.
“It is an honour and privilege to be the very first supply officer to be NDP parade commander and represent the army logistics community, known as CSSCOM, and also the supply formation,” said LTC Ragumaran.
“It is a testament of how the formation has grown over the years and the trust that has been bestowed upon the formation.”
Other highlights that audiences can expect on Aug 9 include a military tattoo that will feature 133 talents from the SAF, SPF and combined schools bands.
This is the first time in eight years such a large-scale band will be performing at the Padang in NDP, said Col Lim. The band will form seven unique formations during its performance, in a show of coordination and precision, he added.
Some of these formations include a scene showing Changi Airport’s control tower with planes beside it, and an outline of mainland Singapore with an orchid in the middle.
There will also be a music video of a 127-strong choir performing a medley of past NDP theme songs.
The choir includes singers from SG Enable, Voices of Singapore Starlight Voices, Compassvale, Xinmin and Punggol secondary schools, as well as Pathlight School.
Traditional parade elements such as the presidential ceremonial vehicle drive-past, presidential gun salute, feu de joie, or rifle tribute, and the state flag flypast continue to be mainstays for 2023’s NDP.
In conjunction with the 55th anniversary of the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), the parade will feature a “Salute to the Nation” by the RSAF’s F-16 and F-15SG fighter jets. More details about the enhanced RSAF55 aerial display segment are expected later.
