Burma Star
| The Burma Star | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Awarded by the Monarch of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India | |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
|
| Type | Military campaign medal |
| Eligibility | All Ranks |
| Awarded for | Different for sea and land service |
| Campaign(s) | Burma 1941–1945 |
| Clasps | PACIFIC |
| Statistics | |
| Established | May 1945 |
| Order of wear | |
| Next (higher) | Pacific Star |
| Next (lower) | Italy Star |
| Related | Pacific Star |
  Ribbon bar without and with Pacific Clasp rosette |
|
The Burma Star is a military campaign medal, instituted by the United Kingdom in May 1945 for award to subjects of the British Commonwealth who served in the Second World War, specifically in the Burma Campaign from 1941 to 1945.
One clasp, the Pacific Clasp, was instituted to be worn on the medal ribbon.
Altogether eight campaign stars and nine clasps were initially instituted for campaign service during the Second World War. On 8 July 1943, the 1939–1945 Star and the Africa Star were the first two of these Stars to be instituted. One more campaign star, the Arctic Star, and one more clasp, the Bomber Command Clasp, were belatedly added on 26 February 2013, more than sixty-seven years after the end of the war.
Only one of these campaign stars, the 1939–1945 Star, covered the full duration of the Second World War from its outbreak on 3 September 1939 to the victory over Japan on 2 September 1945.
No-one could be awarded more than five (now six) campaign stars and no-one could be awarded more than one clasp to any one campaign star. Five of the nine (now ten) clasps were the equivalents of their namesake campaign stars and were awarded for the same respective campaigns as those stars, to be worn on the ribbon of that campaign star of the applicable group which had been earned first. The maximum of six possible campaign stars are the following:
The Burma Campaign took place between 11 December 1941 and 2 September 1945, during which time Japanese forces invaded Burma and drove British forces back to the Indian border. Since the Japanese held superiority in the Pacific Ocean, the Allies were not in a position to strike back and regain a foothold in Burma until early in 1944. Total surrender of the Japanese came on 2 September 1945, following the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Prisoners of War were forced by their Japanese captors to labour on projects such as railway construction, later depicted in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, and were frequently tortured and starved. Approximately 13,000 British soldiers and 2,000 civilians died in Japanese prisoner camps.
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