The invasion
Burma had been separated from British India as a colony of its own in 1937. In December 1941 Japan attacked the Western powers across Asia, and in January 1942 its Fifteenth Army invaded Burma from Thailand, aiming to cut the Burma Road, the supply route to Nationalist China, and to protect its conquests in Southeast Asia. The British, Indian and Burmese forces defending the country were poorly prepared. A disastrous defeat at the Sittang river in February, where a bridge was blown with much of a division still on the far side, opened the way to Rangoon, which fell on 8 March.
The Burma Independence Army, formed by Aung San and the "Thirty Comrades", young nationalists trained by the Japanese, advanced with the invaders, hoping for independence.
The retreat
Chinese armies under the American general Joseph Stilwell came into Burma to help, but the Allied forces were pushed back in the centre and north. Mandalay fell on 1 May. The British forces, under General William Slim, made the longest retreat in British military history, reaching Imphal in Manipur in May as the monsoon broke.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians, most of them Indians who had settled in Burma under British rule and feared Burmese hostility and the Japanese, fled to India by sea and over the mountain tracks into Assam and Manipur. Tens of thousands died on the way of disease, hunger and exhaustion. Their treatment, with separate and better routes for Europeans, caused bitterness in India.
Occupation and reconquest
The Japanese set up a Burmese government under Ba Maw, which declared independence in 1943, but real power remained with the Japanese army. In 1944 the Japanese invaded India at Imphal and Kohima, with the Indian National Army of Subhas Chandra Bose, and were defeated with heavy losses. The Allies then reconquered Burma, taking Mandalay in March and Rangoon in May 1945. In March 1945 Aung San's army turned against the Japanese.
Consequences
The war destroyed much of Burma's economy and infrastructure. The Indian community of Burma never recovered its former position. The war strengthened the Burmese nationalist movement and Aung San's claim to lead it, and Burma became independent in January 1948, outside the Commonwealth.
Further reading
- Metcalf, Barbara D. A Concise History of Modern India. Cambridge University Press, 2012
- Brown, Judith M. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy. Oxford University Press, 1994
- Guha, Ramachandra. India After Gandhi. Macmillan, 2007
See also
- Subhas Chandra Bose — Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) was a Bengali nationalist leader who broke with Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress to pursue armed struggle against British rule, commanding the Indian National Army and the Japanese-backed Provisional Government of Free India before his disputed death in 1945.
- Subhas Chandra Bose and the freedom struggle — This entry examines the long-running historiographical debate over how much credit Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army deserve for hastening the end of British rule in India in 1947, alongside the mass non-violent movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress.
- Manipur — Manipur was ruled by the Ningthouja dynasty from the Kangla at Imphal, and its court chronicle, the Cheitharol Kumbaba, is one of the longest continuous royal records in Asia.
- British Raj — The British Raj was the period of direct Crown rule over India from 1858 to 1947, following the East India Company's dissolution after the rebellion of 1857.
This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.