Despite its early wins, Imperial Japan's fanaticism and brutality could not carry
it through to victory in the war. Poor decision-making and infighting plagued
the Japanese military. Where other armies would have cut their losses and retreated,
living to fight another day, the Japanese Army pressed on, throwing logic by the wayside.
Lacking supplies and medicine, the Japanese more than once stretched themselves too
thin and crumbled as a result. Instead of surrendering, they often fought to the death,
rushing their enemies in reckless banzai attacks.
And if they couldn't do that, there was always suicide. The China–Burma–India theatre was one
of the most atrocious theatres of the Second World War, due in no small part to Japanese savagery.
This theatre was also the site of one of Japan's biggest undoings. In this video, we delve into the
Japanese blunder that was the U Go offensive, focusing on the Battles of Imphal and Kohima.
At the onset of World War II, Burma was a part of
the British Empire, because what wasn't? In December 1941, the Japanese 15th Army,
led by Lieutenant General Shōjirō Iida, advanced through friendly Thailand on Burma's port capital
Rangoon. They bombed the hell out of the city then marched in, driving out the
surviving forces of Britain, British India, and British Burma by early March the following year.
After Rangoon's fall, the forces of the British Empire teamed up with the Chinese in
central Burma to staunch Japan's spread through Burma. Long story short, it didn't work,
and the Allies limped to relative safety in neighbouring India and China. The forces of the
British Empire mostly took refuge in the Indian state of Manipur, notably in the city of Imphal.
From then until March 1944, the Japanese set up shop in Burma, seizing control of the country
and working alongside the collaborationist Burma Independence Army. As for the British, once they
were done licking their wounds, they tested Japanese resolve with an offensive on Burma's
Arakan Province. It was a disaster, with the British taking heavy casualties. They also tried a
less-direct approach, creating British and Indian spec ops units known as the Long Range Penetration
Groups or Chindits. These units went deep behind enemy lines to engage the Japanese using guerrilla
tactics. While the Chindits saw some success, Burma's jungle wore them down and ate them alive.
Of the 9,000 to 12,000 Chindits to serve in Burma, 1,400 were killed and over 2,400 were wounded.
A great many of them spent time hospitalised, as well, suffering from disease and malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the US was improving transportation and communication a little further into India
than Imphal, namely in the state of Assam. Among their larger projects,
they flew supplies from American airbases in Assam to American airbases in China,
over the Himalayan Mountains. They were also busy constructing the Ledo Road,
another vital link between India and China. Both of these efforts would help America and China
fight the Japanese in Burma, so naturally the Japanese weren't too chuffed about it.
In March 1943, a bloke named Renya Mutaguchi took charge of the Japanese 15th Army, while the rest
of Japan's forces in Burma fell under the Burma Area Army. As for Mutaguchi, he dreamt of invading
Assam every night and woke up with a rager every morning. So he came up with a foolproof plan.
Basically, he would take the 15th Army and thrust it into India. The bulk of his army
would penetrate Imphal, while the 31st Infantry Division, under Lieutenant-General Kōtoku Satō,
would gank Kohima to Imphal's north, severing the Allied supply line. Regarding the 15th Army's own
supplies, that wouldn't be a problem: Mutaguchi’s men could sustain themselves on the thrill of
battle alone. Mutaguchi agreed with himself in the mirror that it was a great plan indeed,
the greatest; it didn't matter that his divisional commanders thought otherwise. Other than his
reflection, Guchi also boasted the support of Subhas C. Bose and Bose's collaborationist Indian
National Army in turn. Now all that Guchi needed was a name. Operation U-Go would do.
Defending the Indian cities was the British 14th Army,
a British and British Indian unit under the command of Lieutenant-General William Slim,
who had spent a lot of time and money preparing his men for war, and whose game plan was to
withdraw to the Imphal Plain and stretch the Japanese supply lines thin as pasta.
Guchi reached crossed the Chindwin River on the 8th of March 1944, several days before the
British had expected. This resulted in a bit of a messy withdrawal, with the predominantly
Indian divisions making a fighting withdrawal to the Imphal Plain, inflicting heavy casualties on
the Japanese but suffering a great many in turn. At one point, the city of Imphal was left all but
completely open to the Japanese 15th Division. Unfortunately for Guchi, who really could have
used the win, Slim was able to fly two brigades the 5th Indian Infantry Division, Jeeps and all,
into Imphal and save the day. With the city denied, Guchi lost what momentum he’d built.
From April, he was forced to make ineffectual attacks against the 14th Army on the Imphal Plain.
Meanwhile, Kōtoku Satō's 31st Infantry Division had reached Kohima, coming up against the Assam
Regiment and some platoons of the Assam Rifles. Despite being outnumbered, the regiment fought
a successful rearguard action from the 1st of April to the 4th, when two battalions of the
Indian 161st Brigade arrived in Kohima, where some Chindit and Nepalese Gurkha units had
also gathered. Much of the fighting took place on Kohima Ridge, and certainly the bloodiest occurred
over control of British Deputy Commissioner Charles Pawsey's bungalow and tennis court.
In fact, the battle for the World-War-I-esque no-man's-land that was the tennis court
devolved into a savage melee, punctuated with sniper bullets and bayonet attacks.
According to Major Boshel of the British 6th Brigade, which relieved the 161st,
"the land made impossible to move by day because of Japanese snipers. We were in Kohima for three
weeks. We were attacked every single night They came in waves, it was like a pigeon shoot."
Also brought in to relieve Kohima's initial defenders was the British 5th Brigade,
a unit of the same division as the 6th. Bolstered by these units, the British fought
tooth and nail to remove the Japanese from Kohima Ridge and then the villages surrounding Kohima.
One of such villages was Naga Village. By mid-May, Satō's supply lines were non-existent,
and his men were starving. They tried to forage as much as they could from the surrounding hills,
but it wasn't enough. To top it off, the warehouse full of rice they had hoped to seize had earlier
been bombed and consequentially obliterated. To top it off again, Guchi now wanted Satō to drag
the remnants of his sorry division to Imphal, where things were going equally as terrible
for the Guch. Satō's men—starving, sick, and wounded—dropped off the perch as they moved south,
while the British Indian XXXIII Corps, which had come to relieve the British at Kohima,
gave the Japanese division a not-so-gentle nudge from behind, simultaneously advancing on Imphal.
Beginning in May, Imphal's defenders began a counteroffensive against the Japanese, who were
exhausted from attacking over the Imphal Plain and whose supplies were wearing thin, just as Slim had
expected. The XXXIII Corps hit the Japanese from the north, while south of Imphal, the 17th Indian
Division broke apart the Japanese 33rd Division throughout May and June. On the 3rd of July,
the Guch took another good hard look at himself in the mirror and decided it was over, ordering
the dregs of his army to withdraw. All in all, the Japanese 15th Army suffered some 55,000 to 60,000
casualties in Big G’s U Go Offensive, including over 13,000 deaths, mostly due to starvation,
exhaustion, and disease. The 12,000 pack horses and mules and 30,000 cattle the Guch had sent
into the fray were all but extinct, destroyed by the British or devoured by the Japanese. The Guch
sacked all of his divisional commanders before he got sacked himself, and the tide had well and
truly turned in favour of the Allies in the Burma campaign and China–Burma–India theatre overall.
Had you heard of the simultaneous battles of Imphal and Kohima, though? What about our buddy
Renya Mutaguchi? What do you think would have happened if the Japanese had taken Imphal and
Kohima and moved on to Assam? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.