U.K. EYES ONLY
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ANNEX A
FEASIBILITY STUDY ON EVACUATION OF HONG KONG
(Draft Report of Special Planning Unit)
A meeting of the Hong Kong Ministerial Committee on 24 July recommended
that "a small group, including persons with local knowledge, should be established in the Commonwealth Office to produce a plan for the physical
evacuation of British subjects and other persons for whom we had a special
responsibility Security requirements must be absolute since any leakage
to Hong Kong that the possible need for evacuation was even being considered
would deal public confidence in the Colony a shattering blow. The Defence and
Oversea Policy Committee confirmed that contingency planning should proceed
and emphasised that knowledge of the exercise should be limited in Hong Kong
to the Governor and the C.B.F.
2.
In a letter to the Commonwealth Secretary, the Minister of Defence
suggested that officials should prepare "as rapidly as possible, a general
appreciation of the potential scope and also the security risks of evacuation
planning relating to Hong Kong.....the appreciation should include a summary
of the existing and strictly limited eyacuation arrangements for specially
selected personnel; the problems that would be presented by any wide form of
evacuation planning; and the way in which we might expect to set about coping
with any evacuation scheme if an emergency situation demanded it". The
Commonwealth Secretary agreed with these suggestions and they have been taken
as the basis for our first report.
This paper considers the problem on the following basis:-
(a) Large-scale evacuation: who could be evacuated and
how in ideal conditions (paragraphs 4-6);
(b) the limitations imposed by security considerations
(paragraph 7) ;
(c)
the limitations imposed by the situation likely to be
prevailing at the time that evacuation would be necessary (paragraphs 8 - 9);
Plan
(a) Operation "DIGIT" (paragraphs 10 - 11);
(e) conclusions (paragraph 12).
Large-scale Evacuation
54.
British troops in Hong Kong and their families total about 30,000, British nationals and Commonwealth citizens of non-Chinese race and their
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/families