LINE OF DEVELOPMENT 1. Training As a special operations unit, Force 136 emphasized training. In July 1941, initial training was conducted at STS 101 in Tanjung Balai, Singapore, and Lieutenant Colonel J. M. L. Gavin was the first commandant. Tanjung Balai is an isolated headland on the south coast of Singapore Island, appropriate for Force 136?s clandestine operations training.
Force 136 evacuated and established their new training center in Calcutta when the Japanese drew close to Singapore.

Force 136 (Malaya Section) training continued at the British Far East Military School or Camp Kharakvasla, within the Mahratta Fort in Poona near Mount Singrah, British India. The dilapidated building was converted to barracks, offices, halls, classrooms, a mess, conference rooms, and parade grounds. The course mainly covered shooting skills, assassinations, raids, canoeing, explosives and bombing, clandestine communications, intelligence gathering, camouflage, map reading, and guerrilla warfare. Practical lessons were taught almost every day. Originally, the schedule for training recruits lasted a month, but was soon extended to two months. The training focused and prepared the recruits in sabotage and espionage roles. However, when they were deployed in the field, their chief role was gathering intelligence. There had been feedback from agents on the ground that Force 136 should emphasize training in intelligence gathering. Agents also practiced the essential maneuvers for debarking from submarines and managing ?folboats.?
Force 136 emphasized training until their departure date. Training was conducted in English. Lim Bo Seng translated instructions for the Chinese ?Dragon? groups. During that period, Tan Choon Tee, a Malayan student recruited in China, and Lim Bo Seng wrote every note, copied maps, translated confidential documents, and wrote reports for Kuomintang (KMT) nationalist headquarters in Chungking. During training, Chinese trainees were divided into proChinese, who were sent by the Chinese government and regarded the British as comrades-in-arms for the war, and pro-British, who were recruited directly by the British. The pro-British Chinese were overseas Chinese workers or former employees in the British service. These two groups were not trained together, to avoid mutual suspicion and jealousy. Trainees were kept a distance from one another to keep up the spirit and strength of Force 136.

[references:
Shennan, Our Man, 75, 76, 9.21
Frederick Spencer Chapman, The Jungle Is Neutral (New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1949), 114. ]

3 July 1942. Kharakvasla Camp. Arrived here, HMS Salsette, (the Royal Navy Combined Operations base), two days ago after hectic drive in army trucks. The place is in the catchment area of a reservoir... Once again I find myself a pioneer and spend the days road-making and making tents habitable. In this connection, it is comforting to know that officers? accommodation is no different from the mens'.