Page 139 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
CHAPTER 9
The RAVC in HONG KONG: 1962 – 2021: Brotherhood
“....twelve remount dogs had arrived and another sixteen were in transit...however, heat stroke has presented a problem amongst the new intake and one wonders whether air trooping of war dogs is, after all, the best way of trans- porting them from England to FARELF.”1
For those who felt that they were ‘gifted’ their Hong Kong posting there will be memories of a beautiful and, at the same time, potentially dan- gerous environment. They will recall a tough job in an exotic location executed in spite of a stifling humidity. Hong Kong – an enviable posting.
Hong Kong -the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters (Ngong Shuen Chau) Island (now joined to the mainland), and the New Territories includes the mainland area lying largely to the north, together with two hundred and thirty large and small offshore islands – all of which were leased by Britain, from China, for 99 years from 1898 to 1997. The Chinese-British joint declaration signed on December 19th, 1984, paved the way for the entire territory to be returned to China on 1st July 1997.
RAVC 1962 – Hong Kong
In 1962, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Bishop RAVC visited the Island and witnessed many changes that had taken place in Kowloon and the New Territories including the new pharmacy and sick lines. His report was entitled ‘HQ Land Forces Hong Kong’ but all subsequent articles referred to the Hong Kong Dog Coy RMP and the general talk revolved around the pace of life and a shortage of dogs. The arrival of dogs in a recent heat wave was causing great concern but it was, and always would be, an occupational hazard for the dogs and handlers in the humidity of this ancient, majestic, bustling, busy Colony.
Origins and Sacred Water
The Hong Kong Dog Unit was established by the RAVC immediately after World War Two, but in 1958 the Corps lost command to the Royal Military
1 The Journal of The Royal Army Veterinary Corps Volume 35 No 2 Autumn 1964.
Police (RMP). The RAVC still retained a presence in the pharmacy and the training section but the Unit was re-badged RMP and was therefore no longer known as the Army Guard Dog Unit Hong Kong.
Initially the RMP Unit was relatively small – replacing the disbanded 4 Guard Dog Unit RMP also formed in the 1950s – but it showed great potential and at its height numbered 80 war dogs and 120 Hong Kong soldiers under the RMP Officer Commanding. It took the RAVC less than 20 years to re-claim command of its own Unit on 1st September 1976.
During the period we are covering here, the Hong Kong Unit was not an exclusively canine concern.
In 1963, the Pack Troop reported on a Colony Exercise to conclude the training season, and the success of the mules who never failed to live up to their reputation for working hard and proving their worth in the roughest terrain. They also assisted the Public Works Department to transport around sixty tonnes of sand aggregate and cement to Lead Mine Pass. The water shortages could have made life difficult for the mules, and goats, but they didn’t let such things get the better of them and managed to live a healthy life producing their offspring without any difficulty. The discovery of two wells in the Unit, (along with a selection of mortar bombs and other ammunition – presumably left from the last war), helped in relieving the water situation for everyone.
The mules were life-savers in many respects. Soldier Magazine carried a feature, Man, Mule and Mountain (1963), which covered one of the big problems faced by everyone living in the community.
Something had to be done about Hong Kong’s
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