MAJOR-General Bryan Dutton is well aware that when he starts his new job at the Prince of Wales barracks tomorrow morning he will already have piles of paperwork to catch up on.
The newly arrived Commander of the British Forces (CBF) in Hong Kong said yesterday his first challenge would be ''to get to know Hong Kong and the forces here''.
''It will also be a challenge to understand in a short time the details of the drawdown of the garrison, and the problems we face in our part of the handover,'' he said.
''But if you ask me how I'm going to do that, I can't answer right now.'' One important task for General Dutton, who is the 61st CBF in the territory, and will probably be the last, is reducing his active troops from their present level of about 6,000 to zero by June 30 1997 - with an interim force of 3,250 after January.
General Dutton, 51, has served in the British army since 1963. He has had considerable experience in Northern Ireland - notably after the Warren Point atrocity in which a dozen British soldiers were killed when a police station exploded in South Armagh, and the murder of Lord Mountbatten.
He also had the high-profile position of director of public relations (army) during the Gulf War.