War in China, Burma, India
Overview
War in the China/Burma/India Theater, 1942-43
One of the major theaters in the Second World War was the China-Burma-India Theater, a designation given to the areas of fighting in Burma and India between Japanese and Allied forces. The fighting in this theater was related to the fighting between Japanese and Chinese forces in China and Japanese and Allied forces in the Pacific. Two of the key factors in the defeat of the Axis Powers as a whole and Japan in particular were the greater resources of and cooperation among the Allies, on display in the China Burma India Theater. The British dispatched a field army and the U.S. other forces to assist Burmese and Indian forces in their efforts against the Japanese, and to augment Chinese efforts against the Japanese in the CBI Theater. The Germans and the Italians, on the other hand, could not provide aid to the Japanese. The course of the war in this theater also illustrated a number of the complexities in the Second World War, particularly resentment felt by people in Burma and India toward the Allies, feelings that the Japanese tried to exploit, as illustrated by the creation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Allied victory in the China-Burma-India Theater finally represented the existential nature of World War II, with the ultimate disintegration of the Japanese war effort.
Learning Objectives
- Identify key features of Japanese politics and territorial expansion prior to the outbreak of World War II, including the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
- Outline the course of World War II from 1941 through 1945 in the China-Burma-India Theater.
- Assess the historic significance and impact of World War II in the China-Burma-India Theater.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
China-Burma-India Theater: name for the Asian theater in World War, with most of the fighting in these three countries
In March and April 1942, a powerful IJN carrier force launched a raid against British bases in the Indian Ocean. IJN carrier aircraft struck British Royal Navy bases in Ceylon and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, along with other Allied ships. The attack forced the Royal Navy to withdraw to the western part of the Indian Ocean, and this paved the way for a Japanese assault on Burma and India.
In Burma, the British, under intense pressure, made a fighting retreat from Rangoon to the Indo-Burmese border. This cut the Burma Road, which was the western Allies' supply line to the Chinese Nationalists. In March 1942, the Chinese Expeditionary Force started to attack Japanese forces in northern Burma. On 16 April, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during the Battle of Yenangyaung and rescued by the Chinese 38th Division, led by Sun Li-jen.
As the Chinese war effort progress against Japan through the alliance of Chinese Nationalists and Communists, cooperation between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists, waned, particularly from its zenith in the June-October 1938 Battle of Wuhan, and the relationship between the two had gone sour as both attempted to expand their areas of operation in occupied territories. The Japanese exploited this lack of unity to press ahead in their offensives.
On 2 November 1943, Isamu Yokoyama, commander of the Imperial Japanese 11th Army, deployed the 39th, 58th, 13th, 3rd, 116th and 68th Divisions, a total of around 100,000 troops, to attack Changde. During the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a costly campaign of attrition. Although the Imperial Japanese Army initially successfully captured the city, the Chinese 57th Division was able to pin them down long enough for reinforcements to arrive and encircle the Japanese. The Chinese then cut Japanese supply lines, provoking a retreat and Chinese pursuit. During the battle, Japan used chemical weapons.
Although Japan, Germany, and Italy were nominally allies, there was little cooperation between the three, particularly between Japan and either Germany or Italy because of the distance of the Asian theaters from the European and North African theaters. In practice, there was little coordination between Japan and Germany until 1944, by which time the Allies had the Axis Powers on the defensive..
Cairo Conference
On 22 November 1943 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and ROC Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, met in Cairo, Egypt to discuss a strategy to defeat Japan. The meeting was known as the Cairo Conference and concluded with the Cairo Declaration. This conference was one of a succession of wartime conferences among the Allied leaders toward the end of adjusting their strategies and cooperation as their war efforts progress against the Axis Powers.
Burma 1942–1943
In the aftermath of the Japanese conquest of Burma, there was widespread disorder and pro-Independence agitation in eastern India, as well as a disastrous famine in Bengal that ultimately caused up to 3 million deaths. In spite of these uprisings and issues, as well as inadequate lines of communication, British and Indian forces attempted limited counter-attacks in Burma in early 1943. An offensive in Arakan failed, shamefully in the view of some senior officers, while a long-distance raid mounted by the Chindits under Brigadier Orde Wingate suffered heavy losses. This was publicized to bolster Allied morale, and it provoked the Japanese to mount major offensives themselves the following year.
In August 1943 the Allies formed a new South East Asia Command (SEAC) to take over strategic responsibilities for Burma and India from the British India Command, under Wavell. In October 1943 Winston Churchill appointed Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten as the Supreme Commander of the SEAC, and the British and Indian Fourteenth Army was formed to face the Japanese in Burma. Under Lieutenant General William Slim, its training, morale, and health greatly improved. The American General Joseph Stilwell, who also was deputy commander to Mountbatten and commanded US forces in the China Burma India Theater, directed aid to China and prepared to construct the Ledo Road to link India and China by land. In 1943, the Thai Phayap Army invasion headed to Xishuangbanna at China, but they were driven back by the Chinese Expeditionary Force.
War in the China/Burma/India Theater, 1944-45
The war in the China-Burma-India Theater continued into 1944 with both sides taking the offensive. Utlimately, Allied cooperation and logistical superiority would triumph over the Japanese war effort.
Learning Objectives
- Identify key features of Japanese politics and territorial expansion prior to the outbreak of World War II, including the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
- Outline the course of World War II from 1941 through 1945 in the China-Burma-India Theater.
- Assess the historic significance and impact of World War II in the China-Burma-India Theater.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
China-Burma-India Theater: name for the Asian theater in World War, with most of the fighting in these three countries
Japanese Counteroffensives in China, 1944
In mid-1944 Japan mobilized over 500,000 men and launched a massive operation across China, which was their largest offensive of World War II. The goal of Ichi-Go was connecting Japanese-controlled territory in China and French Indochina and capturing airbases in southeastern China where American bombers were based. During this time, about 250,000 newly American-trained Chinese troops under Joseph Stilwell and Chinese expeditionary force were forcibly locked in the Burmese theater by the terms of the Lend-Lease Agreement. Though Japan suffered about 100,000 casualties, these attacks—the biggest in several years—gained much ground for Japan before Chinese forces stopped the incursions in Guangxi. Despite major tactical victories, the operation overall failed to provide Japan with any significant strategic gains. A great majority of the Chinese forces were able to retreat out of the area and later come back to attack Japanese positions at the Battle of West Hunan. Japan was not any closer to defeating China after this operation, and the constant defeats the Japanese suffered in the Pacific meant that Japan never got the time and resources needed to achieve final victory over China.
This unsuccessful Japanese offensive also created a great sense of social confusion in the areas of China that it affected. Chinese Communist guerrillas were able to exploit this confusion to gain influence and control of greater areas of the countryside in the aftermath of Ichi-go.
Japanese Offensive in India, 1944
After the Allied setbacks in 1943, the South East Asia command prepared to launch offensives into Burma on several fronts. In the first months of 1944, while the Chinese and American troops of the Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC) were extending the Ledo Road from India into northern Burma, the XV Corps began an advance along the coast in Arakan Province. In February 1944 the Japanese mounted a local counterattack in Arakan. After early Japanese success, this counterattack was defeated when the Indian divisions of XV Corps stood firm, relying on aircraft to drop supplies to isolated forward units until reserve divisions could relieve them.
The Japanese responded to the Allied attacks by launching an offensive of their own into India in the middle of March, across the mountainous and densely forested frontier. This attack, codenamed Operation U-Go, was advocated by Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi—the recently promoted commander of the Japanese Fifteenth Army. Imperial General Headquarters permitted it to proceed, despite misgivings at several intervening headquarters. Although several units of the British Fourteenth Army had to fight their way out of encirclement, by early April they had concentrated around Imphal in the Manipur state of India. A Japanese division which had advanced to Kohima in Nagaland cut the main road to Imphal, but they failed to capture the whole of the defenses at Kohima. During April, the Japanese attacks against Imphal failed, while fresh Allied formations drove the Japanese from the positions they had captured at Kohima.
As many Japanese had feared, Japan's supply arrangements could not maintain its forces. Once Mutaguchi's hopes for an early victory were thwarted, his troops, particularly those at Kohima, starved. During May, while Mutaguchi continued to order attacks, the Allies advanced southwards from Kohima and northwards from Imphal. The two Allied attacks met on 22 June, breaking the Japanese siege of Imphal. The Japanese finally broke off the operation on 3 July. They had lost over 50,000 troops, mainly to starvation and disease. This represented the worst defeat suffered by the Imperial Japanese Army to that date.
Although the advance in Arakan had been halted to release troops and aircraft for the Battle of Imphal, the Americans and Chinese had continued to advance in northern Burma, aided by the Chindits operating against the Japanese lines of communication. In the middle of 1944 the Chinese Expeditionary Force invaded northern Burma from Yunnan. They captured a fortified position at Mount Song] By the time campaigning ceased during the monsoon rains, the Northern Combat Area Command had secured a vital airfield at Myitkyina (August 1944), which eased the problems of air resupply from India to China over "The Hump".
Allied Offensives in Burma, 1944–1945
In late 1944 and early 1945, the Allied South East Asia Command launched offensives into Burma, intending to recover most of the country, including the capital Rangoon, before the onset of the monsoon in May. The offensives were fought primarily by British Commonwealth, Chinese, and United States forces against the forces of Imperial Japan, who were assisted to some degree by Thailand, the Burma National Army and the Indian National Army. The British Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from the United Kingdom, British India, and Africa.
The Indian XV Corps advanced along the coast in Arakan Province, at last capturing Akyab Island after failures to do so in the two previous years. They then landed troops behind the retreating Japanese, inflicting heavy casualties; this led to the capture of Ramree Island and Cheduba Island off the coast, where they established airfields that were used to support the offensive into Central Burma.
The Chinese Expeditionary Force captured Mong-Yu and Lashio, while the Chinese and American Northern Combat Area Command resumed its advance in northern Burma. In late January 1945, these two forces linked up with each other at Hsipaw. The Ledo Road was completed, linking India and China, but it was too late in the war to have any significant effect.
The Japanese Burma Area Army attempted to forestall the main Allied attack on the central part of the front by withdrawing their troops behind the Irrawaddy River. Lieutenant General Heitarō Kimura—the new Japanese commander in Burma—, hoped that the Allies' lines of communications would be overstretched trying to cross this obstacle. However, the advancing British Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General William Slim switched its axis of advance to outflank the main Japanese armies.
During February, the Fourteenth Army secured bridgeheads across the Irrawaddy on a broad front. On 1 March, these units captured the supply center of Meiktila, throwing the Japanese into disarray. While the Japanese attempted to recapture Meiktila, XXXIII Corps captured Mandalay. The Japanese armies were heavily defeated, and, with the capture of Mandalay, the Burmese population and the Burma National Army (which the Japanese had raised) turned against the Japanese.
During April, the Fourteenth Army advanced 300 miles (480 km) south towards Rangoon—the capital and principal port of Burma, but it was delayed by Japanese rearguards 40 miles (64 km) north of Rangoon at the end of the month. In May the Fourteenth Army occupied Rangoon, already abandoned by Japanese forces, and linked up with Fourteenth Army five days later, securing the Allies' lines of communication.
The Japanese forces which had been bypassed by the Allied advances attempted to break out across the Sittaung River during June and July to rejoin the Burma Area Army, which had regrouped in Tenasserim in southern Burma. They suffered 14,000 casualties, half their strength. Overall, the Japanese lost some 150,000 men in Burma. Only 1,700 Japanese soldiers surrendered and were taken prisoner.
The Allies were preparing to make amphibious landings in Malaya when word of the Japanese surrender arrived. Concurrently, that spring the Chinese managed to repel a Japanese offensive in Henan and Hubei. Afterwards, Chinese forces retook Hunan and Hubei provinces in South China. In August 1945, Chinese forces successfully retook Guangxi.
Ironically, in light of Japan’s stated goal of claiming to free Asian peoples from European imperialism, the defeat of Japan in World War II in Asia paved the way for decolonization across Asia, with the appearance of a number of new nations, such as India and Pakistan. In a related development Japan’s defeat ended the truce between Chinese communists and nationalists, culminating in the emergence of the latest incarnation of Chinese civilization in 1949: the People’s Republic of China.
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Title Image - photo M4A4 Sherman tank in east Burma, taken 1943 or 1944. Attribution: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Provided by: Wikipedia Commons. Location: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_Sherman.jpg. License: Creative Commons CC0 License.
Wikipedia
"China Burma India Theater"
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- ^ Michael Schaller, The U.S. Crusade in China, 1938–1945 (1982)
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- ^ Jump up to:a b Donovan Webster, The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China–Burma–India Theater in World War II (2003)
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- ^ Jump up to:a b Chapter XIX: The Second Front and the Secondary War The CBI: January–May 1944. The Mounting of the B-29 Offensive in Maurice Matloff References Page 442
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Slim 1956, pp. 205–207.
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- ^ Jump up to:a b Mountbatten, Admiral Lord Louis, Address to the Press, August 1944 http://www.burmastar.org.uk/aug44mountbatten.htm Archived 29 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
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