Battle of the Sittang Bend | |||||||
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Part of the Burma Campaign of World War II | |||||||
5.5-inch guns of the Royal Artillery firing on Japanese troops attempting to break out of the Sittang Bend in early August 1945 |
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Belligerents | |||||||
Empire of Japan | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Montagu Stopford Frank Messervy Francis Tuker (acting) |
Heitarō Kimura Shōzō Sakurai Masaki Honda |
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Strength | |||||||
Force 136 |
Burma Area Army (remnants) |
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
Total: 2,000
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Total: 14,000
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Burma Area Army (remnants)
Total: 2,000
Total: 14,000
The Battle of the Sittang Bend and the Japanese Breakout across Pegu Yomas were linked Japanese military operations during the Burma Campaign, which took place nearly at the end of World War II. Surviving elements of the Imperial Japanese Army who had been driven into the Pegu Yoma attempted to break out eastwards, to join other Japanese troops retreating from the British forces. The break-out was the objective of the Japanese Twenty-Eighth Army with support at first from the Thirty-third Army and later the Fifteenth Army. As a preliminary, the Japanese Thirty-third Army attacked Allied positions in the Sittang Bend, near the mouth of the river, to distract the Allies. The British had been alerted to the break-out attempt and it ended calamitously, with many losses and some formations being wiped out.