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Part I to COS 16th Meeting/68 12th March 1968
rwarded to him.
and
Certain parameters had already been defined and thus there was little choice in working out the pattern of rundown to December 1971. The Army and the Royal Air Force, for example, were affected by the decisions which would result in the break-up of the Commonwealth Brigade by 1969 and by the revised force declarations to SEATO. The Army rundown would also be affected by the provision of facilities in Malaysia, and this in turn was tied to the rundown of the Brigade of Gurkhas.
In addition, a Gurkha Battalion would be needed to cover the final withdrawal with the Commando Brigade. As far as the Royal Navy was concerned, it was important to remember that a large proportion of UK uniformed personnel were afloat, some 10,400 for example, as at 1st April 1968 and about half the figure of 9,900 which would remain up to the final with- drawal. Mathe play was based on the assumption that the dockyard would be commercialised exy 1st April 1969, a factor which was particularly important to the rundown of Locally Enlisted Civilians. Thus, with the Royal Navy too, there was little freedom of choice in the rundown pattern. There was more room for manoeuvre in the rundown of the Royal Air Force, for there were no operational reasons why this withdrawal should be tied to particular dates. There were some decisions still to be taken on the future air defence of Malaysia and Singapore, such as how the air defence systems might be handed over to other Commonwealth countries in the area, and arrangements made for the training of new personnel to operate them. In view of this, the plan allowed for the Lightning squadron and the associated air defence system to be retained until final withdrawal. However, the bulk of the rest of our operational air forces would be withdrawn in the financial year 1969/70, and it was difficult to see how withdrawals could be made any earlier.
On the question of families, GENERAL CARVER said that there was every advantage in retaining the schools and other facilities until the end of the summer term in 1971. It would be difficult to close them before this, because it would mean withdrawing families earlier, which in turn would raise the question of roulement of British troops.
In any case the Gurkha families would have to remain as the Gurkhas were on accompanied terms of service.
In conclusion, GENERAL CARVER said that in all his discussions with the Australians and New Zealanders, it had been consistently emphasised that our forces should be retained at a high level of strength until the latest possible time in order to allow the Commonwealth forces in the area to adjust themselves to our withdrawal and as far as possible mitigate the effects of it.
In discussion, the following points were made:
a.
We were already under pressure to make savings in the current financial year and we might well be pressed by Ministers to increase the rate of rundown in order to make earlier financial savings. We would therefore have to be prepared to set out the
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