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From: Lieutenant General Sir Antony Walker KCB
DEPUTY CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF (COMMITMENTS)
VCDS
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
MAIN BUILDING WHITEHALL LONDON SW1A 2HB
Telephone 01-218 1036 (Direct Dialling)
01-218 9000 (Switchboard)
D Cts Staff (R) 76/259/22/1
10 March 89
HONG KONG GARRISON OUTLINE WITHDRAWAL PLAN FIRST REVISE FOURTH DRAFT
1.
May I
The final draft of the First Revise of the Hong Kong Garrison Outline Withdrawal Plan is at Enclosure 1 for your clearance prior to submission to the Chiefs of Staff. recommend that it be circulated to Heads of Department for their clearance out of committee?
2.
The paper appears dauntingly long but this is because it has been developed as a 4 part, stand-alone document to reduce the need to cross refer to the original plan, CDS 7/87. It is suggested that, for the purpose of clearing the new material, you will need only to refer to the third and fourth parts, which commence on page 13. No alterations have been made to the withdrawal timescales proposed in CDS 7/87. The revisions that have occurred centre on the following issues:
Redacted under FOI exemption section 27(1)
a. The Future RN Presence.
the retention of some form of RN presence afloat in Hong Kong until 30 Jun 97. An MOD Navy Study has already been commissioned.
b. The Scout Helicopter Inventory. The minimum number of Scouts required to meet Hong Kong's operational, rather than peacetime, commitments has been defined. This requires retention of 2 Scouts, which were originally planned to withdraw from service this year; LTC support has already been revised to match. Scout force arrangements will need revision as will the financial provision. To this end, a trial evaluation of 6 UE and 2 Immediate Readiness Reserves (IRRS) is proposed, with the aim of determining whether this ratio is feasible and the most cost effective solution.
c. Army Supporting Arms and Services. CDS 7/87 directed that the rundown of Army Supporting Arms and Services was to be linked, rather than tied, to the withdrawal of battalions. The review proposes that the size and scale of Army supporting arms and services should be directly related to the roles and operational requirements of the remaining garrison battalions at all stages during the rundown.
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