Imphal Campaign

   (March-June 1944)

   An offensive into northeastern India (now Manipur and Nagaland States) carried out by the Japanese Fifteenth Army under the command of Lieutenant-General Mutaguchi Renya. Its purpose was to cut off India-China supply routes, occupy the Imphal Plain, and inspire an uprising of Indian patriots against British colonialism. For this purpose, the attacking force included the Indian National Army, numbering 40,000, commanded by Subhas Chandra Bose. Intense fighting took place, especially around Imphal and Kohima, and conditions were made hellish by the monsoon rains and mountainous topography. But the British lines, supplied by airdrops, held. The Fifteenth Army was forced to retreat out of India and across the Chindwin (Chindwinn) River in June-July. The failure of the campaign, which cost the Japanese as many as 80,000 casualties, opened the way for Allied reoccupation of Burma the following year. In the words of Christopher Bayly, "[T]he Japanese army thrown against Imphal and Kohima was a kind of mass suicide squad. When it was defeated by the vastly increased firepower of the British and Indian armies and American air power, it was cast aside and abandoned by its commanders" (Forgotten Armies, 2004, 388).

   See also World War II in Burma (Military Operations).