THE commanding officer of the Green Howards last night made an 11th hour appeal to Army chiefs not to disband the region's famous regiment.

Lieutenant General Sir Richard Dannatt, Commandant of the King's Division, addressed the executive committee of the Army Board yesterday at a meeting that could seal the Green Howards' fate.

The committee must decide which regiments to disband as part of the biggest defence cuts for a generation.

Major Roger Chapman, from the Green Howards headquarters in Richmond, North Yorkshire, said: "It would be an absolute tragedy if we were to be disbanded.

"In these days of international terrorism, we would lose a regiment with vast amounts of experience and technical knowledge.

"The regiment is like a family - if it works, don't break it."

The threat to the regiment comes after Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon announced in June that four units would be disbanded as part of a restructuring exercise.

Maj Chapman said it had already been agreed that the Cumbria-based King's Own Royal Border Regiment would go and it was hoped further cuts would fall elsewhere.

But mass protests about the loss of two units in Scotland mean another regiment could go in the North.

With a little over 500 soldiers and a smaller recruiting area in terms of population than other regiments, it is feared that the Green Howards are most at risk.

Major David Nicholson, who has led protests against the loss of the regiment, said the preferred option would be to amalgamate the unit with the Prince of Wales' Own Regiment and the Duke of Wellington's Regiment to form the Yorkshire Regiment.

"It's something that we can live with," he said.

In addition to 520 serving soldiers, the regiment has Territorial Army companies in Middlesbrough and Scarborough, 20 cadet detachments and 28 branches of the Green Howards Association.

Eighteen members of the regiment, which can be traced back to 1688, have been awarded the Victoria Cross. Recipients include Sergeant Major Stan Hollis, the only man to receive the VC on D-Day.

Major Chapman is due to attend a meeting of Middlesbrough Council tomorrow after councillors asked how they could support the campaign to save the regiments.

Councils across Teesside are next week expected to discuss a motion opposing the regiment's axing, which has been drawn up by the Labour group on Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

Soldiers from Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and parts of County Durham make up a large part of another under-threat regiment, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

Formed in 1968, the regiment originally had four battalions, but was reduced to three shortly after being raised, and to two following the first Gulf War.

A spokesman said: "They have already suffered their fair share of cuts and any more would be tragic, disastrous."