ENG-1992 — Page 343

THE ARMED SERVICES

Brigade. The present Honorary Colonel of the regiment is the Chief Secretary, Sir David Ford. The Regiment will be disbanded in September 1995. By then, it will have existed in various forms for 141 years.

The regiment has an establishment of 946 volunteers and 54 permanent staff, including 10 regular soldiers on loan from the British Army, one of whom is the Commanding Officer. The volunteers come from all walks of life and are of various nationalities, although over 97 per cent are Chinese. Last May, a total of 113 recruits, of whom 18 were female, successfully completed their six-month basic training. The regiment's final cadre of recruits started training in late September 1992. This last recruiting drive attracted over 1 000 applicants.

The regiment consists of four Sabre squadrons, a home guard squadron, a training squadron and a headquarters squadron which includes a women's troop with a strength of 60 who provide support in various operational duties as searchers, interpreters and radio operators. The regiment also runs a junior leaders' corps of 300 boys, aged from 14 to 17, which provides training in youth activities and leadership skills.

Each year, selected volunteers are sent for overseas training and on attachments to British Army regiments in the United Kingdom. Officer cadets receive military training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, before they receive their commissions.

The training commitment for each volunteer is two evenings and one weekend each month. There are also centrally-organised regimental training programmes such as military courses, regimental camps and exercises. The annual camps, which are the highlights of the year's training, take place over eight days each in April/May and October/November. Starting in 1992, for both camps, the Volunteers were deployed to the border for anti-illegal immigration operations. The first border camp of 1992 took place in May. Working alongside the police, the Volunteers captured a total of 104 illegal immigrants and took part in several police operations.

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