An example :- A concert party ... supposedly in India. WW2

Shore battery. So a "concert party" of some kind near by. Concert were put on at venues to cheer up and entertain the troops. This looks like a chorus line callednout "unexpectedly" into action.

This is a good example that you need to research anything before a knee-jerk reaction. Luckily I'd seen this before in context

Rare Photographs Reveal British Soldiers Manning Anti-Aircraft Guns in Full Drag in World War II
[vintag.es]

Does a Photo Show British Soldiers in Drag Fighting Nazis?
The photograph and others like it were initially censored by the British government.

Bethania Palma Published 15 June 2021

In mid-June 2021, social media users shared a picture of men operating a large naval gun, along with the cheeky caption, “‘we interrupted our drag show to shoot at Nazis'”:

"we interrupted our drag show to shoot at Nazis" is a truly powerful energy I want to bring back [t.co] — Erica (@Erica_fosk) June 12, 2021

The picture above is real, and it does show British troops during World War II dressed in drag manning a naval gun during a German air raid. The only aspect of the photograph that isn’t authentic is the color, which was added after the fact.

The picture was taken by photographer John Topham in 1940. The original version is in black and white. The caption on the original, which is owned by the company that Topham founded (TopFoto), reads, “Home defence troops are left in drag as their Christmas charity performance was interrupted by a coastal alert near Gravesend 1940.”

The British newspaper The Telegraph reported in 2018 that the picture and others like it were censored by the British Ministry of Information, out of fear they could be used as propaganda against the Allies by Nazi Germany. They were unearthed in 2018, almost 80 years after they were originally taken, finally available for the public to view.

The Telegraph reported that the pictures depicted British soldiers who were caught during a rehearsal for one of the shows they staged to keep themselves entertained during wartime. The troops depicted served in the Royal Artillery Coastal Defence Battery; the base was Shornemead Fort, which was in Kent, England.

Here’s how the picture came about, per The Telegraph:

But during his [Topham’s] visit [to the base] the troops were scrambled to deal with the approach of Luftwaffe bombers flying across the Channel to mount raids over southern England.

‘With no time to change back into their uniforms the men went to their battle stations still dressed head to toe in women’s clothing, followed by Topham.

Topham also shot one of the more famous photographs from World War II, namely a picture of British children sheltering in a ditch while watching an aerial dogfight between British and German war planes.

Bethania Palma, Published 15 June 2021

[snopes.com]

This is most likely a group of men who participated in a comical cabaret performance on the front line.
There were no entertainers and no woman so men would do many comical plays to distract each other.
Dressing and singing as woman back then was funny and not queer.

It appears they were called back to action in a hurry and had no time to get back into their battle fatigues.

I jest. surely this was a joke, where's the reference?

Not woke.

Looks like a WW1 era photo (woke idealogy didn't start to get formulated till the mid 20's by the Frankfurt School, after the absolute failure of the working class to take up marxism). Cabarets, plays, musical performances etc were put on in the back line by the soldiers (it was still too dangerous to have civilian entertainers there), to increase morale. Obviously shtf and the soldiers had to run back on duty.
Nothing woke here other than your interpretation of the events.

“Woke” is about making judgements about others, regardless of their permission; a lot like courts finding criminals guilty against their protests. In civil society, presuming guilt beyond the clear necessity of the courts, is both baseless and dignity destroying, of both the judgmental and the judged. A person with “class” (I’m not talking wealth or status, but character) will NEVER do that.

So why presume to know what is going on in the photo? A quick search of literature turned up nothing on the subject.

Noting the lack of ear protection, I would be surprised if they fired that artillery often.

I must have missed this scene in Picnic at Hanging Rock.I hope those dresses are fireproof.

Looks like Singapore right before the collapse. The end of empire

Looks degenerate.