Nuclear material recovered from redundant warheads which is surplus to defence needs either has been or will be transferred into safeguard arrangements and will be subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House. The latest available figures give the numbers enlisted into the Territorial Army as 40,684 against an establishment of 41,204. Since then, the armed forces have continued to respond to further requests for support. The total number of troops deployed as at 3 April was 1,544.
Additional troops are on reduced notice to move, pending further requests for assistance.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will seek advice from his Department's Historic Branch on the contribution made in the battle of the Atlantic by the Polar Bears, in securing Iceland in 1941, and on whether they are entitled to the Atlantic Star. The men of the 49th West Riding Division whose divisional sign was a Polar Bear, formed the core of the British garrison of Iceland between the late spring of 1941 until the end of 1942 when responsibility for the garrison passed wholly to the United States forces who began to arrive there in the summer of 1941. The securing of Iceland by this garrison made possible the subsequent basing there of Allied aircraft to carry out anti-submarine patrols and thus provide further support to the Allied convoys on which so much depended. Further, the island was used as any assembly point for convoys to Russia. However, the land garrison did not participate directly in the operations contributing to the Battle of the Atlantic, and accordingly land service on Iceland was not included among the categories of service conferring eligibility for the Atlantic Star.