Burma campaigns

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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

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