Empirical lessons from the World Wars dictated the need for a joint Services Academy to train future leaders for combined operations. The vision of Lord Mountbatten in consonance with the sustained impetus and groundwork provided by Field Marshal Sir Claude J Auchinlek, C-in-C in India laid the conceptual foundation for a Joint Services Military Academy modeled on the lines of the US WestPoint. In 1941, Lord Linlithgow, the then Viceroy of India had received a gift of a hundred thousand pounds from a grateful Sudanese Government for building a suitable war memorial in recognition of the sacrifices of the Indian troops in the liberation of Sudan in the North African Campaign during  the World War II. A committee headed by Field Marshal Sir Claude J Auchinlek, after extensive studying of various Military academies around the world, submitted its recommendations to the Government in December 1946.

 

After independence of India in August 1947, this report was referred to the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Their suggestion for the formation of an interim Junior Inter Services Wing at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun was then implemented. A simultaneous action plan to commission a permanent war academy at Khadakwasla, Pune was also commenced and the foundation stone was laid by the first Prime Minister of India, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru on 06 October, 1949.

 

On 1 January 1949, the Armed Forces Academy having its Military wing, now called the Indian Military Academy and the Joint Services Wing were commissioned. After two years of training at the JSW, Army cadets went on to the Military wing for a further two-year pre-commission training. The Naval and the Air force cadets were sent to Dartmouth and Cranwell in UK for advanced training. On 07 December 1954, the interim process crystallised with the commissioning of the National Defence Academy. Formal inauguration of the Academy took place on 16 January 1955.

 

 

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