TNAG-0477-FCO40-542-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 74

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unit, whatever its function, contains a trained component capable of operating in a simple defensive role and these are organised into groups for the protection of local defence areas and families; no officer or soldier is unreasonably excluded from this responsibility. There are, therefore, only three units from which a Force reserve could be formed, depending on the characteristics of the emergency. These are:

What about the

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a. Engineers. Disturbances in the urban areas would immediately demand a field squadron for security construction works, EOD and route clearance. This would leave, at most, one field squadron available to act in the infantry role. In a simultaneous IS and border emergency, every Sapper would be used in his trade and, in the even of mass illegal immigration, we should be looking for infantry for use as supervised labour on the SNAKE fence(2).

b.

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Its

Royal Hong Kong Regiment (Volunteers){RHKR (V)) The role of this force is currently under review. strength lies in its intelligent and Catonese speaking soldiers and its locally experienced and orientated officers. Due to the excitable nature and inevitable local affiliation of the Chinese volunteer soldiers, RHKR (V) could not, however, be used as a substitute for a regular battalion either on the streets, in an IS emergency,

or on the border. Nevertheless, it would be invaluable in patrolling and information gathering in rural areas, in providing field force units with local knowledge and language facilities and in guarding key points.

C.

At

Training Centre Brigade of Gurkhas (TCBG). best this unit could provide a near equivalent to an infantry battalion, at worst two very ad hoc companies and some static guards equipped with pickhelves; it all depends on when, in the recruit training year, that an emergency should break. The excellence of the trained Gurkha soldier should not give a mistaken impression of the capabilities of the very new, and often puny, Nepalese recruit whose only real military potential is his Gurkha face.

DELIBERATE ATTACK BY THE CHINESE ARMY

22. There is manifestly little the British Forces, as presently constituted, can do against a really determined attack by China with all the resources at her disposal; and indeed any force that it would, be sensible to garrison in Hong Kong in peace or provide by reinforcement in emergency, would be quite inadequate to resist such an attack with success. Nor can our

(2) Quite separate from these forms of emergency commitment, the engineer element in the Hong Kong garrison is the most immediately available, trained and appropriately equipped military force capable of rendering assistance to the Hong Kong Government in the face of the type of national disaster which is common in the Colony.