World War 2
The Burma Campaign
The loss of Burma deprived the British of the use of the 'Burma Road', along which supplies had been passed to the Chinese generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. His fight against the Japanese, however ineptly conducted, was the principal means of drawing enemy forces away from the war in the Pacific.
The first British attempt to regain access to the Burma Road was launched in the Arakan, the steamy coastal region of northern Burma on the bay of Bengal, at the end of 1942. It was repulsed with almost contemptuous ease by the Japanese in March/May 1943. Nevertheless, morale was boosted by the success of an irregular operation mounted behind enemy lines by the Chindits, a deep-penetration force led by the brilliant, eccentric General Orde Wingate, for air-supplied operations behind Japanese lines in Burma. Their name derives from their arm badge of a chinthe or stone-lion which guards the entrance to Burmese temples. In the field the Chidits were divided into 300-strong self supporting 'columns', each with its own mule train and heavy weapons.
In December of 1943 a second offensive was launched in the Arakan by British Fourteenth Army under the leadership of highly capable General William Slim. It was supported by a second Chindit operation in China directed by the American General Stilwell. Howerver, in mid-March 1944 the Japanese Fifteenth Army went on the attack, threatening India with an invasion through the frontier posts of Imphal and Kohima.
Air power was vital to Allied victory in the Far East. Air drops sustained the Chindits and the defenders of Imphal and Kohima. Powerful fighters like the American Republic P47 Thunderbolts flown by the RAF were fitted with long-range tanks to enable them to strike deep into Burma to seek out air and ground targets. The Thunderbolts were rugged aircraft with excellent speed and rate of roll. It could take a tremendous amount of damage and still be able to bring its pilot's home.
In two epic battles for Imphal and Kohima the Japanese were decisively defeated and driven back to the River Chindwin, which General Slim crossed in December 1944. He completed the destruction of Fifteenth Army at Meiktila in March 1945 and recaptured Rangoon, the Burmese capital, on the 3rd of May. Burma had been reconquered and the Japanese withdrew in disorder towards Thailand.