Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay
The concurrent Battle of Meiktila and Battle of Mandalay were decisive engagements near the end of the Burma campaign during World War II. Collectively, they are sometimes referred to as the Battle of Central Burma. Despite logistical difficulties, the Allies were able to deploy large armoured and mechanised forces in Central Burma, and also possessed air supremacy. Most of the Japanese forces in Burma were destroyed during the battles, allowing the Allies to later recapture the capital, Rangoon, and reoccupy most of the country with little organised opposition.
Background[edit]
Japanese situation[edit]
In 1944, the Japanese had sustained several defeats in the mountainous frontier regions of Burma and India. In particular, at the Battle of Imphal and Battle of Kohima, the Japanese Fifteenth Army had suffered disastrous losses, mainly resulting from disease and starvation.
The heavy Japanese defeat prompted them to make sweeping changes among their commanders and senior staff officers in Burma. On 1 September 1944, Lieutenant General Hyotaro Kimura was appointed commander of the Burma Area Army, succeeding Lieutenant General Masakazu Kawabe whose health had broken down. At this stage of the war, the Japanese were in retreat on most fronts and were concentrating their resources for the defence of the homeland. Kimura had formerly been Vice-Minister for War, and had held other posts with responsibility for mobilising Japanese industry for the war effort. It was hoped that he could use the rice fields, factories and oil wells of Burma to make the Japanese forces there logistically self-sufficient.[2]
Lieutenant General Shinichi Tanaka was appointed to be Kimura's Chief of Staff, with day-to-day responsibility for operations. He had formerly commanded the 18th Infantry Division in Northern Burma, and had a reputation for inflexible determination. (In a reversal of roles in the aftermath of the Imphal disaster, the former Chief of Staff of the Burma Area Army, Lieutenant General Eitaro Naka, was transferred to command the 18th Division.)[3]
Japanese losses in Burma and India in 1944 had been catastrophic. They were made up with drafts of conscripts, many of whom were not of the best physical categories. Kimura's staff decreed that their divisions in Burma should have a strength of 10,000 (compared with their paper establishment of nearer 25,000), but most divisions mustered barely half this reduced strength.[4] Furthermore, they lacked anti-tank weapons. To face massed Allied armour, they would be forced to deploy their field artillery in the front line, which would affect their ability to give concentrated fire support to the infantry. Expedients such as lunge mines (an explosive charge on the end of a long pole), or suicide attacks by men wearing explosive charges, were not effective if the enemy tanks were closely supported by infantry.
Other losses handicapped the Japanese. Their 5th Air Division, deployed in Burma, had been reduced to only a few dozen aircraft to face 1,200 Allied aircraft. Their 14th Tank Regiment possessed only 20 tanks.[5]
Kimura accepted that his forces stood little chance against the numerically and materially superior Allies in open terrain. He therefore intended that while the Twenty-Eighth Army defended the coastal Arakan Province, relying on the difficult terrain to slow the Allied advances, and the Thirty-Third Army continued to fight rearguard actions against the American and Chinese forces which were trying to open a land route from India to China, the Fifteenth Army would withdraw behind the Irrawaddy River.[6] He hoped that the Allies would be overstretched trying to overcome this obstacle, perhaps to the point where the Japanese might even attempt a counteroffensive.
Opening movements[edit]
As the monsoon season ended in late 1944, the Fourteenth Army had established two bridgeheads across the Chindwin River, using prefabricated Bailey bridges. Based on past Japanese actions, Slim assumed that the Japanese would fight in the Shwebo Plain, as far forward as possible between the Chindwin and Irrawaddy Rivers. On 29 November, Indian 19th Division launched British IV Corps' attack from the northern bridgeheads at Sittaung and Mawlaik, and on 4 December, Indian 20th Division under Indian XXXIII Corps attacked out of the southern bridgehead at Kalewa.
Both divisions made rapid progress, with little opposition. The 19th Division in particular, under Major General "Pete" Rees was approaching the vital rail centre of Indaw, 80 miles (130 km) east of Sittaung, after only five days. Slim realised at this point that his earlier assumption that the Japanese would fight forward of the Irrawaddy was incorrect. As only one of IV Corps' divisions had so far been committed, he was able to make major changes to his original plan. The 19th Division was transferred to XXXIII Corps, which was to continue to clear the Shwebo plain and attack towards Mandalay. The remainder of IV Corps, strengthened by Fourteenth Army's reserve divisions, was switched from the army's left flank to its right. Its task was now to advance down the Gangaw Valley west of the Chindwin, cross the Irrawaddy near Pakokku and seize the vital logistic and communication centre of Meiktila by a rapid armoured thrust. By seizing Meiktila he would strangle all supplies going north towards Mandalay and hasten the end of that battle and consequently the recapture of the whole of Burma. To persuade the Japanese that IV Corps was still advancing on Mandalay, a dummy corps HQ was set up near Sittaung. All radio traffic to 19th Division was relayed through this installation.
To allow the main body of their divisions to retreat across the Irrawaddy, the Japanese had left rearguards in several towns in the Shwebo Plain. During January, the Indian 19th Division and British 2nd Division cleared Shwebo, while the Indian 20th Division had a hard battle to take Monywa, a major river port on the east bank of the Chindwin. The Japanese rearguards were largely destroyed.[17] The Japanese also retained a foothold in the Sagaing hills, north of the Irrawaddy near Mandalay.
Meanwhile, IV Corps began its advance down the Gangaw Valley. To conceal the presence of heavy units of IV Corps as long as possible, the advance of 7th Indian Infantry Division, which was intended to launch the assault across the Irrawaddy, was screened by the East African 28 Infantry Brigade and the improvised Lushai Brigade. Where these two lightly equipped formations met Japanese resistance at Pauk, the town was heavily bombed by Allied aircraft to soften up the defenders.
The route used by IV Corps required upgrading in several places to allow heavy equipment to pass. At one point, the trail of vehicles stretched from Pauk to Kohima, 350 miles (560 km) to the north by road.[18]
End of the battle[edit]
On 28 March, Lieutenant General Shinichi Tanaka, Kimura's Chief of Staff, conferred with Honda at Thirty-third Army HQ. Honda's staff told him that the army had destroyed about 50 British and Indian tanks, half the number of tanks in Meiktila. In doing so, the army had suffered 2,500 casualties and lost 50 guns, and had only 20 artillery pieces left. Tanaka accepted the responsibility of ordering Honda's army to break off the siege of Meiktila[44] and prepare to resist further Allied advances to the south.
It was already too late. The Japanese armies in Central Burma had lost most of their equipment, and their cohesion. They would be unable to stop the Fourteenth Army exploiting to within striking distance of Rangoon. Furthermore, with the loss of Mandalay, the Burmese population finally turned against the Japanese. Uprisings by guerilla forces and a revolt by the Burma National Army, which the Japanese had formed two years previously, would contribute to the eventual Japanese defeat.