By May 1944, Operation U-Go, the Japanese invasion of India, had run out of steam. The units of the British 14 Army were either stopping Japanese attacks cold or pushing Japanese units back all along the front.
At Kohima, the Japanese are pushed off the tennis court by a combined infantry-tank attack down the terraces of Garrison Hill. The fighting at the tennis court has been called one of most brutal and fierce battles against the Japanese in the Burma Campaign and even the entirety of the Pacific War of the Second World War
At Scraggy Hill, part of the Shenam Saddle, Yamamoto Force suffered heavy casualties in human wave attacks and is stopped from advancing closer to Imphal. A last ditch Japanese armoured counterattack at Bishenpur was also stopped by the use of PIAT anti tank weapons. Rifleman Ganju Lama twice attacks Japanese tanks and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions.
By the middle of June 1944, Japanese troops were facing starvation and diseases as their supplies ran out and there was no easy way to evacuate the wounded and sick. With no other choice, the Japanese 15th Army retreats back into Burma.
The Japanese 15th Army is all but destroyed during the invasion of India and suffered the worst defeat by the Japanese armed forces during the Second World War.
Thanks to:
Robert Lyman, retired British Army officer, historian, and author of Japan’s Last Bid for Victory: The Invasion of India, 1944; and Kohima 1944: The battle that saved India. He is the co-host, along with Jack Bowsher, of The Forgotten War Podcast about the Burma Campaign of World War 2.
Jack Bowsher, historian and author of Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945 and Forgotten Armour: Tank Warfare in Burma. He is the other co-host of The Forgotten War Podcast.
Listen to The Forgotten War Podcast: Burma Campaign WW2 here: https://open.spotify.com/show/638ufiXTIRidEheXE1ELfu?si=f0f0a2b888fd43b8
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