[2] He then attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the British Indian Army on 30 August 1928.

[7] Among the other junior officers in the same battalion were Lieutenants Kalwant Singh and Pran Nath Thapar, both of whom would also become generals in the Indian Army.

[3] Deployed in Iraq following the outbreak of war, Singh subsequently fought in the North African campaign and was then selected to attend the Army Staff College at Quetta, where he remained as an instructor after passing the course,[3] with a promotion to local lieutenant-colonel on 14 December 1942.

[3] For his leadership during the subsequent Gothic Line and spring offensives, he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO); the award was gazetted on 13 December 1945.

Fighting was hard and casualties heavy but the Battalion, ably directed and controlled by Lt Col Mahadeo Singh, was able to take and hold the river crossing.