CO129-622-9 Material for 'vetting' for lecture 9-11-1949 - 14-11-1949 — Page 21

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Clonese Communist forces on the Frontier of the HONG KONG LEASED

TF RITORY, flushed as they undoubtedly would be with empty

victories over the CHINESE NATIONALISTS, these Communist armies

might just have flowed on over the border unless we had in situ

sufficient forces to prevent this. By the timely reinforcement

of the Colony I believe that this danger has now been averted.

づ It is difficult to assess the real fighting value of the

Communist CHINESE Army. It would be foolish to underrate their

battle worthiness. They have made a good impression with their

strict discipline and soldierly bearing so far, and from our own

recent experiences in the Burma Campaign we know that properly led,

So

organised, trained and equipped the CHINESE can, and do, make

good troops. But all the same we cannot say that the Communist

forces in CHINA have yet proved their qualities in battle. far they have only fought other CHINESE who have, at all events in the past couple of years, been badly led, badly trained and whose

faith in their cause has been, to say the least, pretty shaky.

We have seen too how readily the Nationalist troops have changed sides. There have been few, if any, recent instances of staunch ness displayed by the Nationalist in battle.

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For the moment the Chinese Communists lack both sea and air power, though if they get direct help in the form of equipment

Furthermore, and training from outside, this may naturally alter.

if the Nationalist Air Force changes sides the picture will be

complicated.

Well, be that as it may

The CHINESE COMMUNIST

It has been stated that HONG KONG is not defensible against attack by a high class enemy equipped with all the modern appliances of war; especially aircraft. we are not yet up against this problem. forces cannot be placed in this category, and I believe therefore that we can withstand successfully any form and scale of attack

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