The Indian Army was the largest volunteer army during the Second World
War. Indian Army divisions fought in the Middle East, North Africa and
Italy - and went to make up the overwhelming majority of the troops in
South East Asia. Over two million personnel served in the Indian Army
- and India provided the base for supplies for the Middle Eastern and
South East Asian theatres. This monograph is a modern historical
interpretation of the Indian Army as a holistic organisation during
the Second World War. It will look at training in India - charting how
the Indian Army developed a more comprehensive training structure than
any other Commonwealth country. This was achieved through both the
dissemination of doctrine and the professionalism of a small coterie
of Indian Army officers who brought about a military culture within
the Indian Army - starting in the 1930s - that came to fruition during
the Second World War, which informed the formal learning process.
Finally, it will show that the Indian Army was reorganised after
experiences of the First World War. During the interwar period, the
army developed training and belief for both fighting on the North West
Frontier, and as an aid to civil power. With the outbreak of the
Second World War, in addition to these roles, the army had to expand
and adapt to fighting modern professional armies in the difficult
terrains of desert, jungle and mountain warfare. A clear development
of doctrine and training can be seen, with many pamphlets being
produced by GHQ India that were, in turn, used to formulate training
within formations and then used in divisional, brigade and unit
training instructions - thus a clear line of process can be seen not
only from GHQ India down to brigade and battalion level, but also
upwards from battalion and brigade level based on experience in battle
that was absorbed into new training instructions. Together with the
added impetus for education in the army, by 1945 the Indian Army had
become a modern, professional and national army.
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Training the Indian Army During the Second World War
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781913336912
Publisert
2024
Utgiver
Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors, LLC
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter