'Armistice Day Parade at the Frontier Force Memorial', Kohat, 1938 (c)

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

The Punjab Frontier Force Memorial on the Maidan (parade ground) at Kohat, in what is now Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. It was erected in memory of the officers and men of the Frontier Force killed during the two World Wars.

The memorial was unveiled on 23 October 1924 by General Sir William Birdwood GCB GCMG KCSI CIE DSO who was Commander-in-Chief in India. It was raised by subscriptions from all units of the force, to commemorate those who lost their lives in World War One (1914-1918).

It took the form of an obelisk about 30 feet high, standing on a plinth which was approached from the north over a small bridge or from the south by a flight of five steps. The memorial was rededicated in 1955 to also commemorate those who died in World War Two (1939-1945). After the regiment moved to Abbottabad, in 1964 the memorial was also relocated there on the instructions of General Muhammad Musa, Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army.

The various units comprising the Punjab Frontier Force, or 'Piffers' as they are affectionately known, were raised from 1843 onwards. However, it is generally held that the unit came into being in 1849 as the Trans-Frontier Brigade, raised by the Punjab Government to protect the Province and especially its much-exposed North West Frontier.

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.