Base closure to end Royal Navy's Far East presence

HONG KONG (AP) - The long goodbye to Empire will undergo one of its most poignant moments today when Britain shuts its naval base in Hong Kong, ending the Royal Navy's shore presence in the Far East.

The 156-year colonial chapter that began with Queen Victoria's navy landing troops on the sparsely inhabited island of Hong Kong will end against a backdrop of skyscrapers and a crowded harbor - testimony to Hong Kong as the most successful British colony of all.

The original island base, called HMS Tamar, has been paved over for real estate, and the facility closing today is on Stonecutters Island, just across the harbor.

''It is very sad indeed ... but that is a fact of life,'' the British navy chief, Adm. Sir Jock Slater, told Hong Kong radio Thursday.

Slater, whose title is First Sea Lord, will officiate at the brief ceremony, along with Gov. Chris Patten and Maj. Gen. Bryan Dutton, the garrison commander who will see out the British presence in Hong Kong in 82 days.

The closure and final lowering of the white ensign, or navy flag, falls exactly 100 years after the royal troop carrier HMS Tamar visited Hong Kong and gave its name to the base.

The navy has always been at the cutting edge of Hong Kong's colonization.

HMS Sulphur landed the first naval officer in Hong Kong, Sir Edward Belcher, on Jan. 25, 1841.

The spot where he is said to have made a toast to Her Majesty's health at the island's northwestern end is now crowded with shops and apartment blocks. A Possession Street still exists to commemorate the moment, but the Chinese call it Puddle Street.

Another navy man, Commodore Sir Gordon Bremer, raised the Union Jack and claimed Hong Kong as a colony on Jan. 26, 1841. The next year, aboard the HMS Cornwallis moored on the Yangtze River, China signed the Treaty of Nanking ceding Hong Kong to Britain.

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04/11/97 03:21 AM
Copyright Lubbock Avalanche-Journal 1997