Japanese Conquest of Burma 1942: The Advance to the Gates of India - Campaign

This book provides a fascinating exploration of the Japanese conquest of Burma, as the Allied forces were forced back in disarray to India and China.

The Japanese invasion of Burma, which began in January 1942 and ended in May with the arrival of Burcorps at Imphal in Manipur on the borders of British India, was the longest land campaign fought by British Commonwealth troops during World War II. In the Burmese jungles, the battle-hardened, highly trained and lightly equipped Imperial Japanese Army quickly proved itself a vastly superior fighting force to the British, Indian and Gurkha troops that formed 1st Burma and 17th Indian Division, and to the allied Chinese nationalist forces fighting in eastern Burma.

This superbly illustrated book narrates Burcorps' successful and lengthy fighting retreat north across hundreds of miles of highly malarial, challenging terrain. Among the battles covered are the 22 February 1942 Sittang Bridge (where 17th Indian Division was nearly destroyed), the Fall of Rangoon in March 1942, and the clashes at Yenangyaung and Monywa in April.

The story of how Burcorps successfully escaped destruction is covered in detail and, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of refugees, managed to make it to safety in India before the monsoon broke, battling disease, exhaustion, malnutrition and superior Imperial Japanese Army pursuers the entire way, is one of the epic campaigns of the war.