ABSTRACT
The urgency of filling the breech on the jungle-covered NE frontier of India, garrisoning Ceylon or securing the lengthy coastline of Bengal and southern India, however, accelerated the deploylnent of these ill-trained troops. In midMarch the Commander-in-Chief suddenly ordered the poorly prepared 1st Indian Infantry Brigade, for example, from the NWFP to Manipur. As Brigadier F.V. Wodehouse remonstrated on 27th March: 'It must be remembered that both the battalions going with this Brigade have been concentrating on Mountain Warfare on the N.W.F.P. and have received no training with modern weapons' or 'in the technique of modern warfare against a first-class enemy. ,5 Its badly under-strength 7/ 14th Punjab Regiment, needed 376 recruits to make up its war establishment with the result that 'half of the sepoys in the Bn will be untrained.'o This rushed redeployment of Indian formations to threatened areas necessitated major chopping and changing in their composition, organisation, transport and equipment for their new roles further undermining battle-worthiness.7 Until they improved, the mainstay of the Indian garrison was the battle-experienced 70th Division and two further British divisions that were sent to join the immature and still partially trained formations serving in India Conlmand.
