The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

BATTLE OF IMPHAL

The Battle of Imphal was an Allied operation in 1944 during the Second World War to hold Japanese forces back from an important road junction in the Manipur district of north-east India, 600 km north-west of Calcutta. It was the turning point in the Burma campaign. Imphal was crucial to the Japanese plan for the invasion of India in 1944 and so the British Field Marshal Sir William Slim devoted three divisions and extensive air support to its defence. Imphal held out for three months, with air and commando attacks disrupting the Japanese lines of supplies and communication, until the British were able to break the siege. The Japanese, starving and diseased, had by now lost 53000 troops and fell back to the Chindwin river, abandoning their artillery and transport.
Research Battle of Imphal