My
Enter, with pps pre
In Janji
CONFIDENTIAL
MEETING 23 AUGUST 1976 AT PARLIAMENT SQUARE HOUSE, SW1
Mr J K T Frost (in the chair)
Mr- A Fletcher, Director of Marine, Hong Kong
Mr R Janvrin, FCO (HK Dept)
Mr Dalby-Wickson, FCO (Defence Dept)
Mr J S Daniels DoT
Mr P Hooper DoT
HKK 064/548/1
Mr Fletcher called while on leave in the UK for an informal exchange of views. He
had called earlier on Captain J de B Suchlick ADNOT at MOD (N).
Mr Fletcher's first interest was to discuss what Hong Kong could be expected to do
as a protected territory in a war involving the UK. Mr Frost outlined the UK's
position as a member of the NATO alliance, whereby UK ships would be taken under
government control by requisition on the owners and operated according to the control
of employment of the ocean-going shipping of the Alliance under the Defence Shipping
This would apply to all UK ships at Hong Kong at the time without
Anthority.
separate action in The Colony. The UK and no doubt other NATO shipping nations
would have national shipping representatives in Hong Kong, as in other ports world-
wide who would obviously work together. Container management and priorities would
be dealt with by these representatives with the aid of specialist container co-
ordination representatives where necesssary. The main problem with containers in
war time might be getting them back into service.
[Mr Dalby-Wickson undertook to arrange that Mr Fletcher should have a sight of the
aide-memoire held in Hong Kong for the UKSR.7
The UK Emergency Defence Regulations would be parallelled in the powers of the
governor and Mr Fletcher would consult Mr Bristow in Hong Kong on how these powers
could be used by the colonial government towards local shipping and the ports under-
1.