Mandalay, battle of

The Oxford Companion to World War II | 2001 | 700+ words | Copyright

Mandalay, battle of. This was fought in March 1945 between General Slim's Fourteenth Army and Lt-General Katamura Shihachi's Fifteenth Army during the Burma campaign.

In April 1942 the Japanese had bombed Mandalay almost flat after which the Burma Independence Army had moved in. It had been Burma's last independent capital before the British took the country over and its recapture by them, which included fierce fighting to take Mandalay Hill and Fort Dufferin, was more a blow to the prestige of the Japanese and their Burmese collaborators—‘who rules Mandalay rules Burma’—than a military disaster.

But the fact that the main Japanese strength was pinned down there, while Slim drove an armoured column into Katamura's vulnerable lines of communication further south at Meiktila, resulted in a Japanese rout that opened the way to Rangoon for the British.

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I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "Mandalay, battle of." The Oxford Companion to World War II. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "Mandalay, battle of." The Oxford Companion to World War II. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Mandalaybattleof.html

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "Mandalay, battle of." The Oxford Companion to World War II. 2001. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Mandalaybattleof.html

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