'Abbottabad. The 13th Frontier Force Rifles (Training Bn.) Mess', 1938 (c)

Photograph, North West Frontier, India, 1938 (c).

Abbottabad is now a city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, and is the regimental centre for the Frontier Force Regiment.

In 1922 the five Punjab regiments amalgamated to become the five battalions of the newly created 13th Frontier Force Rifles. Likewise, the four regiments of Sikh Infantry and the Corps of Guides formed five battalions of the newly formed 12th Frontier Force Rifles.

In 1945 the 13th Frontier Force Rifles was retitled as Frontier Force Rifles, and in 1947, it was allocated to the Pakistan Army upon the Partition of India. In 1956 it was amalgamated with the Frontier Force Regiment (which was formerly the 12th Frontier Force Rifles) to become a new Frontier Force Regiment with a headquarters at Abbottabad, and it continues to serve with the Pakistan Army to this day.

From an album presented to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. The album was compiled in 1938 by an instructor, Captain (later Brigadier) Hubert Gervais Lennox Brain (1901-1993), 6th Royal Battalion, 13th Frontier Force Rifles, to give officer cadets in England an idea of what service in the Indian Army was like. In 1974, the album now part of the National Army Museum Collection, was enhanced with photographs from 1939-1947 to fill the remaining pages.