Allies: United Kingdom Medical support: Axis: Japan 120,120-147,000 casualties ~86,600 excluding sick[24][25] 3,253 total casualties[26][27][vi] 200,000 overall ~150 in combat • 5,149 died from diseases [32][33] 2,615 dead or missing Second Sino-Japanese War Taishō period Shōwa period Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups The Burma campaign was a series of battles fought in the British colony of Burma.

The campaign was also strongly affected from the political atmosphere which erupted in the South-East Asian regions occupied by Japan, who pursued the Pan-Asianist policy of a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

This would close the overland supply line to China and provide a strategic bulwark to defend Japanese gains in British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.

The Japanese Fifteenth Army under Lieutenant General Shōjirō Iida, initially consisting of only two infantry divisions, moved into northern Thailand (which had signed a treaty of friendship with Japan), and launched an attack over jungle-clad mountain ranges into the southern Burmese province of Tenasserim (now Tanintharyi Region) in January 1942.

In the face of the Japanese advances, huge numbers of Indians, Anglo-Indians, and Anglo-Burmese fled Burma, around 600,000 by the autumn of 1942, which was until then the largest mass migration in history.

[37] The Japanese successfully attacked over the Kawkareik Pass and captured the port of Moulmein at the mouth of the Salween River after overcoming stiff resistance.

General Archibald Wavell, the commander-in-chief of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command, nevertheless ordered Rangoon to be held as he was expecting substantial reinforcements from the Middle East.

Although some units arrived, counterattacks failed and the new commander of Burma Army (General Harold Alexander), ordered the city to be evacuated on 7 March after its port and oil refinery had been destroyed.

After the fall of Rangoon in March 1942, the Allies attempted to make a stand in the north of the country (Upper Burma), having been reinforced by a Chinese Expeditionary Force.

Realising that they could not win without British support, some of the X Force committed by Chiang Kai-shek made a hasty and disorganised retreat to India, where they were put under the command of the American General Joseph Stilwell.

Efforts to improve the training of Allied troops took time and in forward areas poor morale and endemic disease combined to reduce the strength and effectiveness of the fighting units.

The training, equipment, health and morale of Allied troops under British Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General William Slim was improving, as was the capacity of the lines of communication in North-eastern India.

The major effort was intended to be by American-trained Chinese troops of Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC) under Stilwell, to cover the construction of the Ledo Road.

Orde Wingate had controversially gained approval for a greatly expanded Chindit force, which was given the task of assisting Stilwell by disrupting the Japanese lines of supply to the northern front.

In early March three other brigades were flown into landing zones behind Japanese lines by the Royal Air Force and the USAAF and established defensive strongholds around Indaw.

By the end of May, the Yunnan offensive, though hampered by the monsoon rains and lack of air support, succeeded in annihilating the garrison of Tengchong and eventually reached as far as Longling.

33rd Division and Yamamoto Force made repeated efforts, but by the end of June they had suffered so many casualties both from battle and disease that they were unable to make any progress.

Eleventh Army Group HQ was replaced by Allied Land Forces South East Asia and NCAC and XV Corps were placed directly under this new headquarters.

Landing craft had now reached the theatre, and XV Corps launched amphibious attacks on the Myebon peninsula on 12 January 1945 and at Kangaw ten days later during the Battle of Hill 170 to cut off the retreating Japanese.

On 10 December 1944, the 36th British Infantry Division on NCAC's right flank made contact with units of Fourteenth Army near Indaw in Northern Burma.

NCAC made contact with Chiang's Yunnan armies on 21 January 1945, and the Ledo road could finally be completed, although by this point in the war its value was uncertain.

Chiang ordered the American General Daniel Isom Sultan, commanding NCAC, to halt his advance at Lashio, which was captured on 7 March.

Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, appealed directly to American chief of staff George Marshall for the transport aircraft which had been assigned to NCAC to remain in Burma.

The attackers were initially halted by a strong defensive position behind a dry waterway, but a flanking move by tanks and mechanised infantry struck the Japanese from the rear and shattered them.

An uprising by Karen guerillas prevented troops from the reorganised Japanese Fifteenth Army from reaching the major road centre of Taungoo before IV Corps captured it.

The original conception of the plan to re-take Burma had envisaged XV Corps making an amphibious assault on Rangoon well before Fourteenth Army reached the capital, in order to ease supply problems.

Slim feared that the Japanese would defend Rangoon to the last man through the monsoon, which would put Fourteenth Army in a disastrous supply situation.

After the Allies captured Rangoon, a new Twelfth Army headquarters was created from XXXIII Corps HQ to take control of the formations which were to remain in Burma.

Fourteenth Army (now under Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey) and XV Corps had returned to India to plan the next stage of the campaign to re-take Southeast Asia.

[47] After the war ended, a combination of the pre-war agitation among the Bamar population for independence and the economic ruin of Burma during the four-year campaign made it impossible for the former regime to be resumed.