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THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

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restrictions. Further information is given in the enclosed Terms and Conditions of supply of National Archives' leaflet. Please note that this copy is supplied subject to the National Archives' terms and conditions and that your use of it may be subject to copyright

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12th January, 1946.

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CO 537/1262

restrictions. Further information is given in the enclosed Terms and Conditions of supply of National Archives' leaflet. Please note that this copy is supplied subject to the National Archives" terms and conditions and that your use of it may be subject to copyright

Many thanks for your letter CA4/BM/170 of the 10th of January concerning the arrangements for the command of the forces of the three services in Hong Kong on the resumption of the civil administration. We will certainly take this Chiefs of Staff.

up with the We should propose to remind them that when the Governor takes over, the directives issued to Admiral Harcourt will no longer be appropriate. We should make the point that under one of those directives all three Services in the Colony are placed under the command of Admiral Harcourt and should say that we presume that the Chiefs of Staff will wish to be considering what arrangements should be made, after the resumption of civil administration, for the command of those Services. ke would propose also to mention that the Governor will of course resume the titular appointment of Commander in Chief which he held before the war when there were three separate Commanders in Hong Kong, one for each of the Services.

We shall of course defer our approach until a decision hus been taken on the proposal to postpone the target date for the hand over of civil administration until the 1st of April. That proposal is at present the subject of correspondence between Cash and Lloyd, and I hope that the War office will accept the plan put forward in Lloyd's letter of to-day's date.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to let me know whether you agree with our proposed line of approach to the Chiefs of Staff.

Sir Eric Speed, KCB., KBE., MO.

(Sgd) G, H. GATEK