An expert on mountain warfare, John Prendergast was flown home from Karachi to join the Anglo-French landings in Norway in the spring of 1940. The Wehrmacht had got there first, and within hours of his arrival Prendergast was engaged in an action that won him a Bar to his Military Cross.

Although mountain warfare adviser to 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, he was in command of a mixed force of British troops and Norwegian reservists at Mosjøen, on the northwest coast. With a line of withdrawal to be kept secure he fought a brisk defensive action, killing 50 of the enemy, before bringing his force to safety with the loss of only one man.

Before the war he had had experience on the North West Frontier of India with his regiment, the 15th Punjabis, and on secondment to the North Waziristan Armed Police — the Tochi Scouts. He won his first MC with the scouts in 1937 while commanding the advance guard of a regular force column on the frontier. When Pathans attacked from a flanking hillside, he was ordered to clear the way. With sound use of fire and movement, skills in which the Pathan were also adept, he dislodged the enemy.

John Hume Prendergast was born in Lahore, the son of Major-General C. G. Prendergast, and educated at Victoria College, Jersey. He went to India as a supplementary reserve officer with The Royal Sussex Regiment in 1931 but transferred to the 15th Punjab Regiment soon afterwards.

On return to India after withdrawal of the Anglo-French force from Norway, he was the mountain warfare instructor at the Infantry School, Poona, until appointed in 1941 to raise and command a battalion-sized force to defend the Indian naval base south of Calcutta. When the threat to the naval base lessened, he became battalion second in command of 1/15th Punjabis in the 14th Indian Division for the first, indecisive Arakan campaign of 1942-43 against elements of the Japanese 55th Division. Struck down by malaria, he was evacuated to India but rejoined his battalion in time for its advance with the 19th Indian Division across the Chindwin into the Shwebo plain and the advance on Mandalay.

Appointed to command 3rd Battalion 6th Rajputana Rifles, also in the 19th Division, in early 1945, he led them in the final stages of the Burma campaign when the capture of Rangoon and preventing the Japanese escaping into Thailand were the principal objectives.

Once again in the uplands, this time the jungle-covered Karen hills east of Toungoo in central Burma, he won the DSO commanding his battalion in the fight to halt a Japanese counter-attack astride the Mawchi road to cut 14th Army’s line of communication. He was also mentioned in dispatches for his part in mopping-up operations after the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

The independence and Partition of India in 1947 brought an end to his Indian Army career. He had attended the Staff College, Quetta, in 1946 and was granted a British Army commission in the York and Lancaster Regiment the following year. A defence attaché with knowledge of the region was required in Kabul, however, and he was appointed with the local rank of colonel. Travel in wild country had always appealed to him, so he toured Afghanistan as widely as the progressive and politically non-aligned regime of King Zahir Shah (obituary, July 24, 2007) then allowed.

Reverting to major to join the 1st York and Lancasters in Brunswick in 1950 was something of an anticlimax but he was appointed to command the battalion, part of a lorried infantry brigade in an armoured division, in 1951. He took his battalion for a tour of duty in Khartoum in 1952 before promotion back to colonel for a staff appointment at HQ 1st (British) Corps in Germany. His final appointment in the army was commander of 147 Brigade of the Territorial Army based on Leicester.

In retirement he travelled widely, published The Road to India, a guide to motoring in the sub-continent, A Plume of Dust about travel in Central Europe, and a light-hearted autobiography, Prender’s Progress.

Invariably buoyant, at the 50th anniversary parade to mark the end of the war against Japan he arrived in completely the wrong place to join the Indian Army contingent. As a policeman led him the length of the deserted Mall, he raised his bowler hat and smiled his acknowledgement of the applause of the waiting crowd.

His wife Rose Ann (“Peggy”), née Hutchinson, predeceased him. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.

Brigadier John Prendergast, DSO, MC and Bar, mountain warfare expert, was born on November 15, 1910. He died on February 9, 2008, aged 97