Arakan Campaign 1942-1943

Arakan Campaign 1942–1943
Part of the Burma Campaign
Date December 1942 – May 1943 Location Arakan, western Burma Result Japanese victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom British India	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Noel Irwin William Slim	Kosuke Miyawaki Takeshi Koga
Strength
4 brigades rising to 9 brigades	1 regiment rising to 1 Division
Casualties and losses
916 killed 4,141 wounded and missing	611 killed 1,165 wounded (estimated)

The Arakan Campaign of 1942–43 was the first tentative Allied attack into Burma, following the Japanese conquest of Burma earlier in 1942, during the Second World War. The British Army and British Indian Army were not ready for offensive actions in the difficult terrain they encountered, nor had the civil government, industry and transport infrastructure of Eastern India been organised to support the Army on the frontier with Burma. Japanese defenders occupying well-prepared positions repeatedly repulsed the British and Indian forces, who were then forced to retreat when the Japanese received reinforcements and counter-attacked.

In May 1942, the Allies retreated from Burma, accompanied by many refugees, mainly Indian and Anglo-Burmese. Although the Japanese halted their advance on the Chindwin River (mainly because the heavy monsoon rains descended at this point and made the roads and tracks through the mountainous frontier between India and Burma impassable), the Allies (in particular the British India Command) feared that they would attack again after the monsoon ended. The Government of India and the state governments of the eastern provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa faced widespread disorder and a growing famine which would eventually become the disastrous Bengal famine of 1943.

The British reorganised their command in eastern India. The headquarters of Eastern Army, under Lieutenant General Charles Broad, were at Ranchi in Bihar. This army command was originally a peacetime administrative headquarters for depots and units stationed in Eastern India. It unexpectedly found itself in control of a very large rear communications area, and the troops on the frontier with Burma, roles for which it had not prepared in peacetime. Its fighting formations were the IV Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Noel Irwin, at Imphal in Manipur, and the newly formed XV Corps, commanded from 9 June 1942 by Lieutenant General William Slim, with its headquarters at Barrackpore, near Calcutta.

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