With the out break of
World War I, Rudra enlisted in the
British Army leaving Cambridge to join the
University and Public School Brigade and took part in the
Battle of Mons. Having not been qualified for a commission he joined the 2nd Battalion of the
Royal Fusiliers and took part in the
Battle of the Somme having been one of the 80 odd survivors of the charge of the 500 Fusiliers. He went on to become a sergeant and was wounded. In 1918, he was selected for
OTC at Inns of court but was not able to complete it as the war ended. Having been declined a commission, he requested to be discharged from the Army. The war office instead sent him to India. After World War I concluded in 1918, the Indian politicians raised a demand to grant Indians the
King's Commission. After strict screening, Rudra was selected for the first batch that underwent rigorous pre-commission training. In 1919, he joined the first batch of the
King's Commissioned Indian Officers (KCIOs) at
the Daly College in
Indore. His batchmates included
Kodandera M. Cariappa, who later went on to become a
Field Marshal of the
Indian Army. On 1 December 1919, Rudra was commissioned into the
28th Punjabis as a temporary second lieutenant in the
British Indian Army, and was posted in
Palestine; seven months later, on 17 July 1920, he was appointed to a permanent commission as a second lieutenant, with seniority from the date of his temporary commission. Promoted to temporary lieutenant on 1 December 1920, he took part in the
Third Afghan War and served in the North-West Frontier, Baluchistan, Waziristan and Peshawar, receiving promotion to the substantive rank of lieutenant on 17 July 1921. Rudra was promoted to captain on 17 October 1927; he was promoted to major on 27 March 1939. During
World War II, he took part in the
Arakan Campaign 1942–43. During this period, he was promoted to acting lieutenant-colonel on 15 June 1943 and to temporary lieutenant-colonel on 14 September 1943. In 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Rudra was transferred to the
General Staff at
GHQ India by
General Claude Auchinleck, and was promoted to acting colonel on 3 April 1945. In June 1946, Rudra was appointed an Officer of the
Order of the British Empire (Military Division) in the British government's Birthday Honours List. The following month, on 17 July 1946, by then a temporary brigadier and Director of Morale, GHQ, he was promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1948, the year after India gained its independence, Brigadier Rudra was serving as the Military Secretary at GHQ and was instrumental in the formation of the post independence
Indian Army. He was subsequently promoted to acting major-general and given command of a division, with promotion to substantive major-general on 1 January 1950. During the
Annexation of Hyderabad he led a field force that attacked from
Vijayawada. He was appointed
General Officer Commanding,
Southern Command and retired in 1959. He died in 1993 at the age of 97 after prolonged illness. ==Further reading==