Burma campaign 1941–1942199 BURMA Britain governed Burma as part of its larger empire in India, but never persuaded the Burmese to accept direct rule from London.. It was invaded and o
Trang 1Burma campaign (1941–1942)
199
BURMA Britain governed Burma as part of its larger empire in India, but never
persuaded the Burmese to accept direct rule from London From 1931 to 1933,
Burmese peasants actively resisted British rule and especially British land policy
In 1937 Burma was administratively separated from India It was invaded and
occupied by the Japanese Army during the Burma campaign of 1941–1942 Some
Burmese, led by Aung San, fought alongside the Japanese early in the war A
collabo-rationist government led by Ba Maw was rewarded with a territorially truncated and
politically false “independence” in 1943, and formally declared war on the Western
Allies Heavy fi ghting accompanied the disastrous Japanese Imphal offensive in 1944
Three Japanese armies failed to keep British, Indian, and Chinese troops from
ad-vancing northward in 1944–1945 The Western Allies were supported by 13
battal-ions of Burmese troops drawn exclusively from the Chin, Kachin, and Karen ethnic
minorities, serving under British offi cers with 14th Army In March 1945, Aung
San and the Burma National Army switched sides upon seeing that Japan would
surely lose the war and realizing that some new deal would have to be made with
the victorious British The last 30,000 men of Japanese 28th Army made a
desper-ate attempt to break out of Burma in July 1945 They sought to reach and cross the
Sittang, fi ghting past the end of the war elsewhere They failed at terrible cost: only
1,400 weak survivors were taken prisoner out of 30,000 who made the fi nal trek
British losses were under 100 men The British reoccupied Burma at the end of the
war, but the return was tentative As Burma sank into civil war, London negotiated
a reasonably graceful departure It acceded to formal independence in 1948
See also Admin Box; Arakan campaign; biological weapons; Burma Road; Burma-Siam
railway; Ichi-Goˉ; Ledo Road; X Force
BURMA CAMPAIGN (1941–1942) The Japanese assault on Burma was fi rst
assayed on December 14, 1941, along with attacks on Pearl Harbor, Malaya, Hong
Kong, and the Philippines The main aims of the invasion of Burma were to cut off
supplies to the Guomindang in southern China, buffer the conquest of Malaya,
and threaten and tie down British forces in India Japanese 15th Army was led by
General Shojiro Iida Opposing the Japanese was a single Indian Army division
of 12,000 men and an even less well-trained or properly armed Burmese division
of 15,000 A Japanese assault on Indian troops along the Sittang wiped out most
defenders by February 23, 1942 The key moment came when a panicked British
commander blew a major bridge, thereby stranding most of his Indian troops on
the wrong side of the river General Archibald Wavell, commander in chief of the
hastily organized ABDA Command, ordered Rangoon defended at all cost The city
fell on March 8, with a British motorized column escaping when the Japanese
uncharacteristically failed to complete their attack with suffi cient speed or
aggres-sion The Britain retreat was protected by fi ghters of the American Volunteer Group,
the famed “Flying Tigers.”
A British armored brigade arrived in-country, but an Australian division
never made it in time Guomindang troops were seconded to the British front from
China under their American commander, General Joseph Stilwell Japanese troops
overmatched all these forces in morale and training, superior commanders, and