Field Marshal Wavell, the Viceroy of India, inspecting the 8th Gurkha Rifles, December 1945

Photograph, World War Two India (1939-1945), 1945.

Wavell was made Viceroy in 1943. His mandate there was to maintain the status quo in India during the war. He helped control the communal tension and civic strife that later exploded during the Partition of India in 1947. Although he was against Partition, as he knew it would lead to bloodshed which neither Indians, Pakistanis or the British could control, Wavell helped lay the foundations for the work of Sir Cyril Radcliffe's Border Commission.

One of 233 official photographs collected by Captain Roy Wiltshire in his capacity as Editor of the Indian Army Review.