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4. The figure of £335,000 does not include any element for the capital cost of the eight aircraft. Were they not needed for Hong Kong however, they would, in 1970, become surplus to our requirements, and we would, in the normal course, sell them back to Hawker Siddeley for refurbishment and resale to overseas customers: you may know, secondhand Hunters are in great demand abroad and we are under constant political pressure to make them available from RAF sources. We estimate that we would receive from Hawkers a total price of about £300,000 for the eight aircraft. Rather more than half of this sum however would have to be paid over to the US Government under off-shore purcha se arrangements: we would recover the balance of a bout £140,000. Stationing the Hunters in Hong Kong will mean that Defence Votes will forego this sum, unless we are reimbursed.
5.
We propose to establish the Hunter detachment in Hong Kong in March 1970, the date when the Hunter squadron in FEF is due to disband. The aircraft concerned could then be simply redeployed from Singapore to Hong Kong and the expense of returning them to the UK and subsequently flying others out to Hong Kong thus avoided. To achieve this, however, a decision will have to be taken on the costs of the detachment by the spring of this year: this is to allow FE F time to select the aircraft for Hong Kong and to get the necessary servicing and refurbishment carried out.
6. The present agreement on the costs of the Hong Kong garrison does not expire until March 1971. Moreover, the DOPC agreed at their meeting in May that consideration of where the costs of the garrison should be borne should be deferred. We shall therefore have to settle the question of the costs of the Hunter detachment as a separate issue from the wider matter of the costs of the garrison as a whole.
7.
As you know, the requirement for fighter aircraft in Hong Kong, as formulated by the Governor, is based entirely on political and psychological grounds, and as the Defence Secretary made clear at the DCPC, there is no military justification for a permanent fighter presence in the Colony. For this reason the Chiefs, of Staff, in approving CINCFE's report, have reiterated their stipulation that the costs of the detachment should not be borne by the Defence Budget. This means that we must look to you to meet the costs. We should accordingly be grateful to know what arrangements you envisage for the reimbursement of the Ministry of Defence for the actual running costs of the force of fighter aircraft and for the amount we would otherwise receive by selling the aircraft back to Hawker Siddeley.
8. I am sending a copy of this letter to Gaminara in the Hong Kong Department.
C. A. WHITMORE
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