 He was born the only son of Tara Singh and Hukam Kaur, a couple of Ugoke village, near Sialkot (now in Pakistan).His father died two months before his birth and his mother shifted to her parents' home in Badiana in the same district, where Mohan Singh was born and brought up.Mohan Singh passed secondary school and enlisted the 14th Punjab Regiment of the British Indian Army in 1927.