In May 1942, during the Battle of Gazala the brigade held a defensive box at Point 171 near Bir Hakeim and was again overrun by units of the Afrika Korps and Italian forces.

The Axis had released 600 prisoners from captivity after 48 hours, due to a water-shortage, who reached the Free French fighting the Battle of Bir Hakeim (26 May – 11 June) and another 200 men were liberated by a British column.

The 2nd Lancers (Gardner's Horse), together with the 11th Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) (PAVO) and 18th King Edward's Own Cavalry (KEO) formed Sialkot Area and renamed the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade (Brigadier E. W. D. Vaughan, late OC 2nd Royal Lancers) from July 1940, under the command of the 1st Indian Armoured Division from August 1940.

By April, the brigade was tactically mobile but had no artillery, no 2-pounder anti-tank guns, only half its establishment in radios, and was armed mainly with rifles.

Down through the years before the war whilst training in the Militia I had worked out exercises and manoeuvres on sand tables and blackboards, but never did I imagine that such a huge force could be controlled as perfectly as was the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade and its attached troops on that morning.The 2nd Royal Lancers were assigned the west face and the PAVO the east.

At 11:00 a.m., infantry mounted in two lorries charged the eastern sector held by the PAVO, along the road towards an Australian anti-tank gun, which stopped the trucks.

The troops jumped out, ran for cover and an Australian party went forward and captured a German officer, twenty Italian soldiers, and a 47 mm anti-tank gun.

Soon after, the Support Group and the armoured brigade turned north towards Maraua and Derna, after receiving a wireless report ordering a change of direction to Maraura.

The divisional headquarters did not receive the message, continued eastwards and O'Connor ordered the 3rd Indian Brigade to send out a petrol convoy to meet the division.

Mechili was not completely surrounded and parties operated outside the perimeter, PAVO patrols bringing in several prisoners during the day, when the road was closed to the east but still open to the west.

A patrol from the squadron at Gadd el Ahmar came in for supplies and found the way blocked when it tried to return; the petrol convoy departed with a troop of the 2nd Lancers, on the route along which the 2nd Armoured Division was expected.

M Battery encountered Gambier-Parry the 2nd Armoured Division commander, with the advanced HQ and the last cruiser tank, which reached Mechili about 9:30 p.m.[5] In the evening, a German officer appeared with a flag of truce and demand that the garrison surrender and was seen off by the defenders.

The main Axis forces had been unable to reach Mechili in sufficient strength because some units had run out of fuel, others had mechanical difficulties caused by the excessive heat, others had received no rations for four days and many others had got lost or were out of touch.

The garrison saw an Axis force leaguer to the east of Mechili that afternoon and Munro planned a dawn raid with the 10th Battery and an Indian cavalry troop.

The two anti-tank guns were made a section and Munro, the battery commander, took one to the perimeter to test its sights and fired at a group of Axis troops moving into position.

The troops turned out to be gunners and bombarded the camp for half an hour, during which A Squadron KEO came in from Gadd-al-Ahmar 30 mi (48 km) to the south-east, having skirmished with armoured cars en route.

Machine-gun fire was received for more than an hour with no effect and just before dusk, armoured cars forced a standing patrol of the 2nd Lancers in the south-western sector near the landing ground to withdraw; later the attackers retired and the position was reoccupied.

[12] At dusk Gambier-Parry sent a message to Cyrcom asking for the whereabouts of the reinforcements and received a reply at 10:00 p.m. that the 104th RHA was not coming and that the location of the 3rd Armoured Brigade was uncertain.

[16] The cruiser tank was late and Vaughan as delayed the move for fifteen minutes, dawn broke but despite this, the Axis troops appeared to have been surprised.

As the Germans and Italians recovered from the surprise attack, the cruiser tank set off, the PAVO flank guards moved outwards to widen the gap and brigade headquarters followed.

Zero hour for the Axis attack arrived and as Vaughan and the brigade headquarters group got going, guns to the east, south-east and south opened a rapid fire.

A. E. Filose, was re-equipped at Mena in Egypt and in September the brigade moved to north-east Syria with the Free French, to repress the civilian population at Deir-ez-Zhor, under the command of the 31st Indian Armoured Division.

In February 1942, the brigade returned to Egypt, received the 2nd Field Regiment Royal Indian Artillery (RIA) and trained for three months in the desert.

[26] On 22 May, the brigade was taken under command by the 7th Armoured Division (Major-General Frank Messervy) and was sent 4 mi (6.4 km) south-east of Bir Hakeim to Point 171, to form a pivot for British tanks to manoeuvre around.

The brigade was reformed in August, minus the 2nd Field Regiment and travelled to Sahneh in Iran via Baghdad, returning to the command of the 31st Indian Armoured Division where it remained until late November, then moved to Shaibah, 7 mi (11 km) from Basra.

[36] On 14 July 1944, the 43rd Gurkha Infantry Brigade (Lorried), which had been trained in mountain warfare, was made available to the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI), with the caveat that it was doubtful if it could be kept up to strength in Gurkhali-speaking British officers.

The division moved forward to Senigallia and Castellone by 3 September, ready for the offensive against the Gothic Line but the route was so bad that 22 Sherman tanks broke down and many more were only kept going by running repairs.

On the night of 3/4 December, the 10th Indian Division participated in a decoy attack north of Faenza, which was so successful in diverting German attention that it was repeated the following day.

[42] By 27 April, the Allies were across the River Po but the rains slowed the arrival of the Gurkhas, ready for an Eighth Army attempt to "gate-crash" the Venetian Line.

After clearing the Germans from the area west of Route 16 as far as Padua, it passed to the command of XIII Corps on 29 April and began to take huge numbers of prisoners.