The Burma Campaign 1941 - 1945

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• 1. Background
• 2. Start of the campaign
• 3. Stalemate
• 4. Victory in sight
• 5. Post-war situation
• 6. Find out more
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Start of the campaign

There were two reasons for the Japanese invasion of Burma. Firstly the Japanese knew it would serve them well if they cut overland access to China from Burma via the famed Burma Road. Along this road a steady stream of military aid was being transported from Rangoon, over the mountains of the 'Hump' and into Nationalist China, but if this supply route was closed, the Japanese could deprive Chiang Kai Shek's Kuomintang (Nationalist Chinese) armies of their life-blood, permitting the Japanese to conquer all China.

'The troops were raw, lacked combat experience, and were inadequately trained ...'

Furthermore, possession of Burma would place the Japanese at the gate of India, where they believed general insurrection against the British Raj would be ignited once their troops had established themselves in Assam, within reach of Calcutta. To this end they cultivated the services of the dissident Bengali politician Chandra Bose, who recruited thousands of Indian troops captured in Singapore into his Indian National Army - to fight the British.

Entering Burma from Thailand, the Japanese quickly captured Rangoon, cutting off the Burma Road at source, and depriving the Chinese of their only convenient supply base and port of entry. In response, General Sir Archibald Wavell, in supreme command of the Far Eastern theatre, formed two scratch divisions, the 1st Burma and 17th Indian, into Burma corps (Burcorps).

He ordered his commanders, against their better judgement, to defend well forward. They, however, were aware, as he was not, of the deficiencies of their commands. The troops were raw, lacked combat experience, and were inadequately trained and equipped to take on the aggressive and bold invaders.

Apart from two experienced light tank regiments and an infantry battalion brought in from the Middle East, whose presence in the long retreat up-country undoubtedly saved Burma Corps from total destruction, no other reinforcements reached Burma Command. (The British 18th Division, destined for Burma, was redirected to Singapore on Churchill's orders, reaching it just in time to march into Japanese prison camps.)

Operating a scorched-earth policy as it went, Burcorps, now under command of Lieutenant General William Slim, fell back up the Irrawaddy river, accompanied by tens of thousands of wretched Indian refugees, harassed and murdered by the Burmese population as they struggled to gain Indian soil. In May 1942 the retreat finally ended, and the shattered remnants of Burcorps began to prepare for return to Burma.

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