Japanese armies attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal and invade India, but were driven back into Burma with heavy losses.

He had played a major part in several Japanese victories, ever since the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937, and believed it was his destiny to win the decisive battle of the war for Japan.

The Allies had widely publicised the successful aspects of Wingate's expedition while concealing their losses to disease and exhaustion, possibly leading Mutaguchi and some of his staff to underestimate the difficulties they would later face.

In Southeast Asia, they had held their lines over the preceding year, but the Allies were preparing several offensives from India and the Chinese province of Yunnan into Burma.

In particular, the town of Imphal in Manipur on the frontier with Burma was built up to be a substantial Allied logistic base, with airfields, encampments and supply dumps.

Imphal was linked to an even larger base at Dimapur in the Brahmaputra River valley by a road which wound for 100 miles (160 km) through the steep and forested Naga Hills.

His plan was named U-Go, or Operation C. In detail: At the insistence of Subhas Chandra Bose, leader of the Azad Hind (a movement which sought to overthrow British rule in India by force, with Japanese assistance), the Indian National Army made a substantial contribution.

Gambles such as Mutaguchi was making had worked in the past, but could no longer be relied upon, given nearly total Allied air superiority in the area and the improvement in morale and training of British and Indian troops.

Based on his experiences in the campaigns in Malaya and Singapore and in the Japanese conquest of Burma in early 1942, Mutaguchi dismissed British and Indian troops as inherently inferior.

The Allies, under general William Slim, had by now largely overcome the administrative and organisational problems which had crippled their early efforts in Burma, and their troops were far better trained and motivated.

Because the Allies were planning to take the offensive themselves, the corps' units were thrown forward almost to the Chindwin River and widely separated, and were therefore vulnerable to being isolated and surrounded.

[19] Acting major-general Douglas Gracey was opposed to making any retreat, but on 25 March he was ordered to detach some of his division to provide a reserve for IV Corps.

The only force left covering the northern approaches to the base, the Indian 50th Parachute Brigade, was roughly handled in the Battle of Sangshak by a regiment from the Japanese 31st Division on its way to Kohima.

Slim was able to use these to move the battle-hardened 5th Indian Infantry Division, including all its artillery and first-line transport (jeeps and mules), by air from Arakan to the Central Front.

On the Japanese left flank, the INA's Subhas Brigade, led by Shah Nawaz Khan, reached the edge of the Chin Hills below Tiddim and Fort White at the end of March.

[24] The 3rd Battalion meanwhile moved to Fort White-Tongzang area in premature anticipation of the destruction of Major General Frank Messervy's 7th Indian Infantry Division in the Arakan, which would allow it to receive volunteers.

During the early part of the offensive, the Bahadur Group of the INA apparently achieved some success in inducing British Indian soldiers to desert.

Other Japanese advancing directly up the Tiddim-Imphal road were halted in Potsangbam 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Bishenpur, as troops of 17th Indian Division rejoined the battle.

The Gandhi Brigade was short of rations, having brought forward only one day's supplies, and also suffered 250 casualties to shellfire after they pulled back from Palel.

Its 60th Regiment captured a British supply dump at Kanglatongbi on the main Imphal-Dimapur road a few miles north of Imphal, but the depot had been emptied of food and ammunition.

A battalion of the Japanese 51st Regiment (which was commanded by Colonel Kimio Omoto) seized the vital Nungshigum Ridge, which overlooked the main airstrip at Imphal.

This was a major threat to IV Corps and on 13 April the 5th Indian Division counter-attacked, supported by air strikes, massed artillery and the M3 Lee tanks of B Squadron of the 3rd Carabiniers.

During the first half of May, there were several Japanese air attacks on Bishenpur, and heavy fighting for the village of Potsangbam 2 miles (3.2 km) to the south, in which the British lost 12 tanks.

Yamamoto Force had also suffered heavy casualties, but before withdrawing, they launched two modest raids on Palel Airfield in the first week of July, destroying several parked aircraft.

At a meeting between Mutaguchi and Kawabe on 6 June, both used haragei, an unspoken form of communication using gesture, expression and tone of voice, to convey their conviction that success was impossible,[36] but neither of them wished to bear the responsibility of ordering a retreat.

The Japanese, reduced in many cases to a rabble, fell back to the Chindwin, abandoning their artillery, transport, and many soldiers too badly wounded or sick to walk.

In December, Slim and three of his corps commanders (Scoones, Christison and Stopford) were knighted by the viceroy Lord Wavell, at a ceremony at Imphal in front of Scottish, Gurkha and Punjab regiments.

The Allies could fly men, equipment and supplies into the airstrips at Imphal (and Pallel also, until the onset of the monsoon rains), so, although cut off by land, the town had a lifeline.

[40][41] Several thousand mules were used to supply outlying outposts, for example, 17th Indian Division on the Bishenpur trail, so animal fodder was also flown in during the siege.

At the start of the battle, South East Asia Command had 76 transport aircraft (mainly C-47 Skytrain) available, but many others were dedicated to supplying the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-Shek, or to establishing USAAF bomber bases in China, via "the hump".