The 36th Division, uniquely, was created as an Indian Army formation, but was formed from British brigades that had reached India from the Madagascar campaign and from Britain.

On 27 May 1944, General George Giffard (the commander of 11th Army Group) ordered that all Indian divisions fighting in Burma should adopt the A & MT establishment.

Indian women at the time did not mix socially or at work with men and a large part of the corps was formed from the mixed-race Anglo–Indian community.

[41] The Chindits (named after a mythical beast, statues of which guarded Burmese temples) were the brainchild of Brigadier Orde Wingate, who intended that long-range penetration raids behind enemy lines would become the main effort against the Japanese in Burma.

The growth achieved by 1942 proved difficult to maintain as even the martial races of the dogra, Muslim, Sikh, Punjabi and Pathan struggled to fill existing units, though they continued to constitute the bulk of the frontline forces as the non-martial recruits were relegated to rear areas and auxiliary functions.

[46] In the early years of the war, the Eighth Army suffered from poor leadership and repeated reversals of fortune until the Second Battle of El Alamein when it advanced across Libya into Tunisia.

It resulted in British and Commonwealth forces pushing across a great stretch of Libya and capturing almost all of Cyrenaica, 115,000 Italian soldiers, hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces and more than 1,100 aircraft with very few casualties of their own.

The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, fought a delaying battle at Meikili on 6 April, which allowed the 9th Australian Division to safely withdraw to Tobruk.

[57] Operation Battleaxe (4th Indian and 7th Armoured) in June 1941 had the goal of clearing eastern Cyrenaica of German and Italian forces; one of the main benefits of this would be the lifting of the Siege of Tobruk.

On the third day, the British narrowly avoided outright disaster by successfully withdrawing just prior to a German encircling movement which would have cut them off from retreat.

From February to April 1941, the Indian 4th and 5th Infantry Divisions took part in the Battle of Keren,[56] By the end of the campaign, the Italian forces had been cleared from Eritrea and Abyssinia 220,000 of them becoming prisoners of war.

[5] In April, the 8th Indian Infantry Division landed at Basra and marched on Baghdad securing Iraq for the Allied cause from the pro German Rashid Ali.

From the south, two battalions from 8th Divisions 24th Indian Brigade making an amphibious crossing of the Shatt al-Arab, captured the petroleum installations at Abadan.

[64] Further north, eight battalions of British and Indian troops under Major-General William Slim advanced from Khanaqin into the Naft-i-Shah oilfield and on towards the Pai Tak Pass, leading towards Kermanshah and Hamadan.

[69] In late 1940, Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham ordered the 2nd Battalion, 15th Punjab Regiment and a heavy 6 in (150 mm) gun battery from the Hong Kong-Singapore Royal Artillery, to be positioned at Kuching, the capital of Sarawak.

Arthur Percival, GOC Malaya, later called their resistance "a feat of endurance which assuredly will rank high in the annals of warfare.

[71] In April 1945. the division was withdrawn to South India to prepare for Operation Zipper the invasion of Malaya, having been chosen for the assault landing role.

Although hostilities then ceased, the operation proceeded as planned, 23rd and 25th Divisions was the first formations to land in Malaya 9 September, and then accepting the surrender of the Japanese Army.

The Japanese suffered heavy casualties during the battle, but the Allied forces were too weak to hold the oil fields and had to retreat to the north.

The Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the major British and Indian troops at Imphal were supplied.

Most of the Japanese forces in Burma were destroyed during the battles, allowing the Allies to later recapture the capital, Rangoon, and reoccupy most of the country with little organised opposition.

BCOF was responsible for supervising demilitarisation and the disposal of Japan's war industries,[90] as well as the occupation of the western prefectures of Shimane, Yamaguchi, Tottori, Okayama, Hiroshima and Shikoku Island.

[93] The 8th Division led the assault on the German defensive Bernhardt Line, crossed the Sangro River and advanced to just short of Pescara where Eighth Army halted to wait for better weather in the spring.

The 7th Indian Brigade and Divisional troops were allocated Greek Macedonia, Thrace and Thessaly, with instructions to keep watch on the borders of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

On 15 January, a truce had been concluded in Athens, by the terms of which ELAS undertook to withdraw from the capital and Salonika and to occupy rural concentration areas.

[101] The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest military decoration, which is, or has been, awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of the Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories.

The Victoria Cross is awarded for ... most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.

In July 1945, the British government reported that at least 1,045 members of the Legion had already been repatriated to India, or were being held for questioning in the UK, while about 700 remained at large in Europe.

[137] World War II was the last time the Indian Army fought as part of the British military apparatus, as independence and partition followed in 1947.

Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, then Commander-in-Chief, India, was appointed Supreme Commander to ensure smooth division of units, stores and so on.