Following the "hell of a beating" and withdrawal with the Japanese Imperial Army hot on his heels, General Stilwell knew he would need a better trained and better equipped fighting force for the campaign to retake Burma.  He convinced Washington to back his plan to establish a base in the CBI Theater where the Chinese Army could be trained and re-equipped.  A relatively few number of men, Instructors serving at U.S. Army bases around the world, were hand-picked for this special assignment.  These men were experts in their fields, destined to become instructors at what was at the time the only U.S. Army Training Center on foreign soil.

   These hand-picked men were organized as Casual Detachment 8925-B at Fort Screven, Savannah, Georgia.  On 19 March 1942 at 0700, 53 Officers and 138 Enlisted Men departed Charleston, South Carolina on the U.S.A.T. Brazil.  They knew their mission was to instruct troops, but they were not told where.  Enroute the Brazil made stops at San Juan, Puerto Rico; Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa and Capetown and Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  On 16 May 1942 at 1200, the Brazil arrived at its destination, Karachi, the capital of the Sind Province of India.

   Troops unloaded and were transported by truck to New Malir Cantonment, a staging area for U.S. troops arriving in CBI, located about 20 miles northeast of Karachi.  The terrain of the area was flat, sandy loam with not much vegetation.  The climate was hot and dry, being in the Sind Desert.  The natives were very poor, most of them beggars living in houses built of mud dried brick and sticks.

   In late June 1942, Casual Detachment 8925-B headed east for Ramgarh to establish the Chinese Training and Combat Command and the Ramgarh Training Center.