Meiktila, battle of

Meiktila, battle of, four-week encounter fought between Japanese and British forces in February– March 1945 during the Burma campaign. It was Slim's greatest strategic triumph of the campaign and took place after his Fourteenth Army crossed the River Irrawaddy in central Burma in pursuit of Lt-General Katamura Shihachi's Fifteenth Japanese Army. To trap Katamura's forces, which were still reeling from the failure of the Imphal offensive, Slim employed a large-scale deception plan (CLOAK). This involved, inter alia, transmitting radio signals from a bogus HQ, which succeeded in convincing the Japanese that Slim's 4th Corps was about to move on Mandalay. Slim feinted in that direction, but his main thrust was made by secretly moving the striking force of 4th Corps (17th Indian Division and 255th Tank Brigade) down the Myittha valley and across the Irrawaddy, and then sending his armour racing towards Meiktila, the heart of Katamura's communications and supply network.

The only opposition in the area, the Indian National Army, was brushed aside. Japanese transport troops, 300 infantrymen who reached Meiktila before the British attacked, and even the wounded, fought bravely, but the town fell to 17th Division on 3 March in what Slim described as ‘a magnificent feat of arms’. More than 2,000 Japanese bodies were counted.

With Katamura now embattled around Mandalay the Burma area commander, Lt-General Kimura Hyotaro, reacted swiftly and in strength by ordering Lt-General Honda Masaaki to retake Meiktila with 49th Division and elements of four others. For a time 17th Indian Division was cut off, but it was supplied by air, a brigade was flown in to reinforce it, and Honda failed to break the division's grip on the town. On 28 March 1945 he withdrew after covering Katamura's withdrawal. For a time he stood at Pyawbwe, but once he had been overcome there the way to Rangoon was open.