The Burma Campaign 1942–45

Abstract

Burma was to be the theatre of the longest continuous British campaign, from 1941 to 1945 — fought in varying terrain of jungle, mountains, plains and wide rivers. By May 1942, the Japanese occupied almost the entirety of this British colony, and granted it nominal independence in August 1943. The British, having been forced back into Assam, had to build up resources from scratch, and the process was very slow, with priority given to other theatres. Unrest in India after the failure of the Cripps mission in 1942 to agree a timetable for independence and the arrest of many Indian Congress Party leaders, including Gandhi, also impeded the building up of forces, and gave the Japanese scope to create an Indian National Army out of troops captured in Malaya and commanded by Subhas Chandra Bose.