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This paper compares organisational learning at the operational level in the British and Indian Armies during the Second World War. It studies how both armies learned lessons and developed their operational techniques during the Second World War and the extent to which they worked together to do so. By 1944 both armies had developed and learned to the point they were capable of winning, or contributing to winning, major battles with the armed forces of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. However, to date, literature has focused on the individual development of separate theatres and national armies. This paper looks at learning in the British and Indian armies holistically and comparatively. 

It has been assumed that a pre-war focus on common doctrine, training, and equipment across the British, Indian and Commonwealth armies created greater interoperability between the individual national armies. This paper explores this interoperability at the operational level and argues that not only did the British and Indian Armies develop different operational doctrines, but they were also fundamentally different as learning organisations and processed and understood knowledge in very different ways. 

It makes this argument by looking at training, doctrine, and the selection and appointment of commanders to break down the structures and expose the inner workings of both the Indian and the British Armies to understand how they processed knowledge in very different ways, and the implications of this for their conduct of the Second World War.


James Halstead - James recently submitted this PhD thesis on the Development of the Operational Level in the British and Indian Armies during the Second World War to Brunel University. He is a researcher of the First and Second World Wars, with interests in the the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and British Army operations, with a focus on doctrine, military learning, combined arms, and the operational level of war. He has a BA in War Studies from the University of Kent, and an MA on History of War from King’s College London. before beginning his PhD at Brunel. 


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