At Winnellie, the regiment joined the 23rd Infantry Brigade, which was the only part of the 8th Division that remained in Australia at that time; the other two brigades had already been deployed to Malaya where they were undertaking garrison duties. As such, it was believed that the regiment would soon be deployed and the arrival in Darwin was initially treated as a period of acclimatisation. Later, as war with Japan became likely, the brigade's three infantry battalions were deployed to the islands to Australia's north: the &lt;a href="2/21st%20Battalion%20%28Australia%29"&gt;2/21st&lt;/a&gt; to Ambon, the &lt;a href="2/22nd%20Battalion%20%28Australia%29"&gt;2/22nd&lt;/a&gt; was sent to Rabaul and the &lt;a href="2/40th%20Battalion%20%28Australia%29"&gt;2/40th&lt;/a&gt; to Timor. The 2/14th, however, remained behind and stayed in the Darwin area for the next year-and-a-half undertaking training and garrison duties. As a result, after the Japanese overwhelmed these garrisons, the regiment became the only unit of the 8th Division that was not destroyed. Acknowledging this, the regiment adopted a modified, albeit temporary, unit colour patch consisting of a perpendicular bar that ran down the centre of the patch representing the "Broken Eighth Division"; when the captured men of the 8th were finally released from captivity, the plan was to remove the bar.