Burma Campaigns

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Burma campaign (see Map 19). Waged between the Japanese and the Allies, this was the longest campaign in which the British Army participated during the Second World War, lasting from December 1941 to August 1945. However, ‘British’ is a totally inappropriate description as Indian troops predominated within Slim's victorious Fourteenth Army and a wide variety of races, including Burmese, Chinese, Chins, Gurkhas, Kachins, Karens, Nagas, and black troops from British East Africa and British West Africa also took part. Ultimate victory was therefore principally won not by the Americans and the British, but by the Indian Army, albeit under British leadership. It was fought over equally diverse terrain which included not only jungle but mountains, open plains, coastal waters, and wide rivers, too. On the plains, during the Imphal campaign, tanks played an essential role, while air transport and supply gave the campaign a vital additional dimension.

Japan's initial purpose in invading Burma was to protect the flank of its troops fighting in the Malayan campaign and the capture of Singapore. Later the occupation of the country, which effectively closed the only remaining supply route to China of any consequence (see Burma Road), provided the westernmost bastion of the newly extended Japanese empire. Even in the days of utter defeat in 1945, the Japanese Army held on to a corner of Tenasserim to block any Allied overland advance on Bangkok. Burma was also a shop-window. The granting of a form of independence to it in August 1943, however inadequate, gave some substance to Japanese claims to be liberators of South-East Asia from the colonial powers (see Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere). Finally, in the view of the Japanese prime minister General Tōjō, as well as in that of Lt-General Mutaguchi who launched the Imphal offensive into Manipur State, Burma was the stepping-stone to India.

The British wanted to retake a country lost by military defeat and to avenge that defeat, but the means to that end were not always clear. During most of the campaign, higher command in London and Washington envisaged by-passing the rigours of an overland battle in order to capture Rangoon by sea. The British wanted Rangoon as a staging post to Singapore; the Americans wanted it, at least until the Ledo Road was completed, in order to clear the road from Rangoon north into China. Churchill also favoured such ventures as a landing on the northern tip of Sumatra (CULVERIN), and the appointment of Admiral Mountbatten, former Chief of Combined Operations, to command South-East Asia Command (SEAC) in September 1943 clearly fore-shadowed amphibious warfare playing the main role. This never happened, largely because the necessary landing craft were not made available from other theatres. In the end, although Rangoon was taken from the sea by an amphibious hook, the fact that the city was deserted when the British entered it was due to their victorious advance overland. And this advance was, in turn, created by Slim's decisive defeat of Mutaguchi's Imphal offensive which was launched in March 1944.

The USA saw in Burma the last means available to feed supplies to Chiang Kai-shek and thus keep China in the war against Japan (see also China incident). This in turn would draw off large Japanese forces which might otherwise intervene in the Pacific war and would also provide air bases in China from which long-range bombers could bomb industrial centres in Japan (see also strategic air offensives, 3). The USA was therefore concerned chiefly with the campaign in North Burma to permit a road and an oil pipeline to be opened from Ledo in Assam to Kunming in Yunnan, and soon after this was achieved in January 1945 the American contribution to the Burma campaign effectively ceased (see China–Burma–India theatre). Under Chiang Kai-shek, China saw the training and equipping of its forces in India as a contribution to the solving of post-war internal disputes rather than as a full participation in Allied offensives. The British found US support for Nationalist China misplaced. Neither India, which provided the bulk of the fighting power for the Allied forces, nor Burma, which was their battleground, was consulted by the Americans or the British in the planning of the campaign.

The first Japanese move into Burma was when Victoria Point and its airfield, at the southernmost tip of Burma adjacent to Thailand, were occupied by Uno Force (143rd Infantry Regiment, 55th Division) on 14 December 1941. This prevented air reinforcements reaching Malaya from India. Then, on 19 January 1942, two divisions (33rd and 55th) of Lt-General Iida Shojiro's Fifteenth Army, supported by the 10th Air Brigade and guided by rebels of the Burma Independence Army, took Tavoy and attacked Kawkareik and Moulmein from Thailand across the Dawna Range. The 17th Indian Division, commanded by Maj-General John Smyth, planned to fight behind a succession of river barriers—the Salween, Bilin, and Sittang—but the blowing of the Sittang Bridge on 23 February ended in disaster and Smyth's dismissal. Rangoon was taken by the 33rd Japanese Division on 8 March; and the Burma Army under Lt-General Alexander, who had recently superseded Lt-General Tom Hutton, narrowly evaded capture when a Japanese roadblock on the Prome road prevented their escape northwards. They attacked it several times without success but the local Japanese commander, sticking rigidly to his divisional commander's plan, then withdrew it in order to enter Rangoon, as ordered, from the west.

Chinese reinforcements, reluctantly accepted by the head of ABDA Command, Lt-General Wavell, came south as far as Toungoo, but were pushed back by the advance of the 56th Division which, with the 18th Division, had reinforced Iida's Fifteenth Army by advancing through the Shan States from Thailand. The 38th Chinese Division helped extricate the 1st Burma Division from defeat at Yenangyaung before marching out through Imphal to be re-formed in India. In March Slim took command of the newly constituted Burcorps, which comprised most of what remained of the British Forces in Burma, and led it back to India in a fighting retreat, the longest in the history of the British Army, which was completed by May 1942.

Iida's 18th and 56th Divisions reached the Chinese frontier at the end of April and the northernmost point reached by the Japanese, Sumprabum, was captured on 17 June. Akyab, with its airfields on the Bay of Bengal, was in Japanese hands on 4 May. Taking over as C-in-C, India, after the collapse of his ABDA command, Wavell had already begun to plan the recapture of Burma in April, but the 14th Indian Division's attempt to re-take Akyab in December 1942 ended in failure. There was a brief pause before it tried to take Akyab again, and failed again, and an attempt to reach Donbaik was repulsed in March 1943. After months of fighting, the British in Arakan were back where they had been in October 1942. In the meantime in northern Burma Brigadier Wingate launched his Chindits on 13 February 1943 in an operation (LONGCLOTH) which penetrated behind Japanese lines, using air supply. He lost one third of his 3,000 men, but the subsequent publicity boosted British morale and valuable lessons were learned on the use of air supply.

Burma campaign: Casualties

Louis Allen

Bibliography

Allen, L. , Burma: the Longest War 1941–1945 (London, 1984).
Callahan, R. , Burma 1942–1945 (London, 1978).
Calvert, M. , Prisoners of Hope (new edn. London, 1971).
Fergusson, B. , The Wild Green Earth (London, 1946).
Slim, Viscount , Defeat into Victory (London, 1956).

Burma Campaigns (World War II) (Jan. 1942–May 1945) The longest campaign involving troops from the Commonwealth and the British Empire during World War II. On 19 January 1942 two Japanese divisions advanced into Burma, accompanied by Aung San's Burma National Army. They captured Rangoon (8 March) and quickly reached Lashio at the southern end of the Burma Road, thus cutting off the supply link from India to China. In May they took Mandalay, forcing the British forces under General Alexander to withdraw to the Indian frontier. Attempts to regain the Arakan (October 1942 to May 1943) failed. Meanwhile, in February 1943 Wingate led 3,000 Chindit troops behind Japanese lines. They suffered heavy casualties, but provided an important boost to British morale. In 1944 the Allies repelled a Japanese attempt to advance into northern India, inflicting upon the Japanese Army the biggest defeat in its history. In October an offensive was launched by British and Commonwealth troops, and US-supported Chinese Nation-alists under General Stilwell. The Burma Road was reopened in January 1945. By now a discontented Aung San had contacted Mountbatten and in March his troops switched sides to join the Allies. As General Slim's 14th Army advanced down the Irrawaddy, a force of Indian, Gurkha, and West African forces moved through the jungle of the Arakan, supported by air-drop and amphibious operations. The Japanese headquarters at Akyab fell in January, while inland Mandalay fell to Indian and British troops, after fierce fighting, on 20 March. Rangoon was attacked by land and sea and fell on 2 May, and by 17 May Burma had been recaptured. Myanmar

Burma Campaigns (January 1942-August 1945) In 1942 two Japanese divisions advanced into Burma (now MYANMAR), accompanied by the Burma National Army of AUNG SAN, capturing Rangoon, and forcing the British garrison to begin the long evacuation west. The Japanese reached Lashio at the southern end of the ‘Burma Road’, thus cutting off the supply link from India to Nationalist China. They captured Mandalay (May 1942) and the British forces under General ALEXANDER withdrew to the Indian frontier. During 1943 there were attempts to reassert control over the Arakan, but these failed, although General WINGATE with his Chindit units organized effective guerrilla activity behind Japanese lines, where an originally pro-Japanese population was becoming increasingly disillusioned. Early in the spring of 1944 heavy fighting took place in defence of Imphal, when an attempted Japanese invasion of Assam/Northern India was deflected in a series of bloody battles, of which Kohima was the most important. In October a three-pronged offensive was launched by British, Commonwealth, US, and Chinese Nationalist troops, and in January 1945 the Burma Road was reopened. By now a discontented Aung San had contacted MOUNTBATTEN and in March his troops joined the Allies. Rangoon was finally captured on 1 May 1945.

Burma campaigns (1941–5). These involved three issues. One commanded American support, the attempt to reopen the land route to nationalist-held China to strengthen resistance to, and prepare for an attack on, Japan. In 1944 the Japanese, by extending their conquests in China, made this strategy futile. The second involved guarding British-controlled India; the third the reconquest of lost British territories, particularly Malaya, rich in rubber and tin. In 1944 General Slim defeated a Japanese offensive and in 1945 Mountbatten's South-East Asia Command organized the reconquest of Burma followed by operation Zipper, landings in Malaya, shortly after the Japanese surrender.

R. A. C. Parker

Burma campaigns (1941–5). These involved three issues. One commanded American support, the attempt to reopen the land route to nationalist‐held China. The second involved guarding British‐ controlled India; the third the reconquest of lost British territories, particularly Malaya, rich in rubber and tin. In 1944 General Slim defeated a Japanese offensive and in 1945 Mountbatten's South‐East Asia Command organized the reconquest of Burma.