SINGAPORE: Naval diver Lim Chee Seng still remembers clearly the day he performed a free fall jump at the 2018 National Day Parade.
“From above, I can see the bay is filled with people dressed in white and red,” said the First Warrant Officer in the Republic of Singapore Navy’s (RSN) Naval Diving Unit.
“It made me very proud to be a Singaporean.”
Seven years since he and other naval divers first joined the famed Red Lions in an NDP jump, the elite force is returning to mark Singapore’s 60th birthday with a coordinated display called the Jump of Unity.
It will be the first time both naval divers and Red Lions – chiefly commandos – will parachute into two different locations – the Marina Bay and Padang, respectively. Following the jumps, the two teams will perform a combined salute.
“The keyword here is unity,” said 1WO Lim, who is also team lead. He added that the precise coordination to synchronise their actions for the combined salute was one of their “greatest challenges”.
At this year’s NDP, seven naval divers will demonstrate a free fall jump used in actual operations.
The team will be transported by the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF) H225M Medium Life Helicopter, and exit sequentially at 6,000 ft above ground.
The divers will then deploy their parachutes at about 5,000 ft, and land in the water in front of the Esplanade at Marina Bay.
Once they enter the water in quick succession, they must remove their parachutes, make their way to a recovery platform, and move to the salute point.
Their timing must be “tight and precise”, said 1WO Lim, 41.
