War studies

_{The War Studies Research Group will be hosting a seminar with the paper given by Megan Hamilton (KCL) at 16:00 on 2^nd May 2024. The seminar will be held at ADFA in Seminar Room 3, Building 32 (Lecture Theatre North).}

Training the Troops: British and Commonwealth Armies in the Second World War

The Second World War welded the British Empire into one of the widest reaching military coalitions ever seen. Indians, Canadians, and Australians trained and fought alongside Britons, New Zealanders, South Africans, and colonial forces. This ‘imperial army’ totalled at around eleven million and spanned the entirety of the globe, fighting in all major theatres of war. If Britain was to make the most of its multi-national force it had to foster a collective way of operating, and one way of doing so was by synchronizing training practices. Fortunately these efforts had four decades of development to build upon. It was no accident that the armies of the British Empire were able to be highly interoperable and cooperative in the Second World War, as this was the successful culmination of both formal and informal exchange since the South African War. 

Based on her ongoing doctoral research, Megan will use training as a vehicle to focus on the channels of communication between the armies of the British Empire, the actors involved, and the doctrinal developments resulting from a high degree of knowledge sharing. The early years of the war saw the armies of the Commonwealth rely heavily on British military knowledge to develop their training regimes, as their own institutions were underdeveloped. However, cumulating experience in active combat encouraged doctrinal innovation, leading to the development of military knowledge in all parts of the Empire. Historians have demonstrated that ‘one of the most vexed questions of any military alliance is whether the hard-won lessons of one army can be learnt by its partner.’  However, Megan’s research aims to demonstrate how the tight bonds of an imperial alliance allowed such lessons to flow much more freely.

About the speaker:

Megan Hamilton, PhD Candidate, King’s College London & Imperial War Museum 

Megan Hamilton is a second-year PhD candidate in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, under the supervision of Professors Jonathan Fennell and Niall Barr. She holds history degrees from Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo, those being largely focused on the Canadian experience of the World Wars. Her current research is an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Imperial War Museum that studies Second World War army training across the British Empire. Megan is the PGR Lead for the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War and the Second World War Research Group (Europe).

• Craig Stockings, (2023), Born of Fire and Ash: Australian operations in response to the East Timor crisis 1999–2000
• Richard Dunley, (2023), 'Uncrewed naval vessels and the span of maritime tasks', Marine Policy, 149,
• Tristan Moss, (2023), 'History and Australia's Space Policy', in The Foundations of Australia's Space Policy, Griffith Asia Institute, Brisbane, pp. 5 – 13
• Richard Dunley, (2023), 'The end of the ‘lucky country’? Understanding the failure of the AUKUS policy debate', Australian Journal of International Affairs, 77, pp. 317 - 324,
• Margaret Hutchison, (2021), '‘Old Age is Not a War Disability’: Debating Aged Care for Nurses of World War I in post-1945 Australia', Australian Historical Studies, 52, pp. 63 - 78
• Tom Richardson, (2021) 'The Korean War', in Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The Nexus of Strategy and Operations in a Multipolar Asia, 1945–1965, ANU Press, pp. 73 – 92
• Tom Richardson, (2021) 'The Malayan Emergency', in Fighting Australia’s Cold War The Nexus of Strategy and Operations in a Multipolar Asia, 1945–1965, ANU Press, pp. 115 - 135
• Tristan Moss, (2021), 'Defending Australia’s land border: the Australian military in Papua New Guinea', in Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The nexus of strategy and operations in a multipolar Asia, 1945 – 1965, pp. 157 - 172,
• Tristan Moss, (2021), 'Planning for war in Southeast Asia: the Far East Strategic Reserve, 1955 - 66', in Moss T; Dean P (ed.), Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The nexus of strategy and operations in a multipolar Asia, 1945 – 1965, pp. 95 - 114,
• Rhys Crawley, Peter Londey & David Horner, (2019), The long search for peace: Volume 1, The official history of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and post-cold war operations: Observer missions and beyond, 1947-2006,
• Rhys Crawley, D Baldino (ed.), 2018, Intelligence and the Function of Government, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne,
• Rhys Crawley & John Blaxland, (2017), The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO, 1975-1989