V Force was a reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering organisation established by the British during the Burma Campaign in World War II. Establishment and Organisation In April 1942, when the Japanese drove the British Army from Burma and seemed likely to invade India, General Sir Archibald Wavell ordered the creation of a guerilla organisation which was to operate along the frontier between India and Burma. This frontier ran for 800 miles (1200 km), from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. V Force was envisaged as a "stay-behind" force. If the Japanese had invaded India after the monsoon ended late in 1942, V Force was to harass their lines of communications with ambushes and sabotage, and to provide intelligence from behind enemy lines. The force was organised into six area commands, corresponding to the Indian Civil Service administrative areas, which in turn corresponded to the ethnicity of the inhabitants of the vario