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C.0.5. (45) 2008 th mts 9 24.8.

COMEL ND OF HONG KONG

J.P.(45) 208 (Final)

(Previous Reference:

2061

آورده است اما

LE dept

F6053/1147/1

XX

C.0.S.(45) 197th Meeting, Minute 1

THE COMMITTEE considered a report by the Joint Planning Staff examining what arrangements should be made for the future command of Hong Kong and taking into account a letter from the Foreign Office regarding the arrangements necessary to ensure military co-ordination with the Generalissimo in matters affecting the surrender of Hong Kong and the subsequent use of the port facilities in support of Chinese and United States forces.

SIR ANDREW CUNNINGHAM said that he disagreed entirely with the solution proposed by the Joint Planning Staff with regard to the command which should be exercised in the immediate future. In paragraph 9 of the report, very cogent reasons were given as to why the Chiefs of Staff should have direct control over this important British possession when there were likely to be both political and military complications in the immediate future, whereas the Joint Planning Staff had advanced reasons which he considered not sufficiently important to justify their conclusion that the short term command of Hong Kong should be placed under Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia. He considered that the military governor should retain full operational control over the forces in the Hong Kong territories and that he should be directly responsible to the British Chiefs of Staff.

SIR ALAN BROOKE said that from the military point of view, as the ground forces would be drawn from South East Asia Command and their supplies and equipment administered from that command, there could be no question that the most preferable arrangement would be to place these forces under the command of South East Asia through the Governor. In time of emergency it was natural that the Governor should assume the full military responsibility for questions affecting the Hong Kong territories but as the question of reinforcements and relief would be the immediate problem of South East Asia Command, he suggested that the Governor should be directly responsible to the Supreme Commander and not to the British Chiefs of Staff.

SIR CHARLES PORTAL said that the administration and operational control of the Air Force was similar in this case to that of the Army, and the problems involved necessitated a delegation of this control to the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South East Asia. Owing to these factors, he agreed that the Governor should, in time of emergency, exercise operational and administrative control of the forces under his command in Hong Kong, but that he should be directly responsible to the Supreme Commander, South East Asia Cond, rather than the Chiefs of Staff Committec.

X C.0.8.(45) 541 (0)

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