He is known for his leadership of his battalion of the British Indian Army under the gruelling captivity of the Japanese forces in Singapore for three years.

Gurbaksh Singh was born in a wealthy Madahar Jatt Sikh family, in the village of Badrukhan in the princely state of Jind, in British India.

[3] He joined the Jind State Forces as a cadet on April 1, 1923, and got commissioned as an officer on December 15, 1923.

With the turning of the tide and the defeat of the Japanese, Singh brought his battalion back to India.

[2] While he appears to have prepared a draft of his autobiography in 1978, it was completed and published by his wife Sudesh Gurbaksh Singh in 2013.