page_title: Battle of Imphal
section_title: Japanese offensive planning
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Imphal / Situation / Japanese offensive planning
caption_attribution_description: Author Mike Young
context_page_description: The Battle of Imphal took place in the region around the city of Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in northeast India from March until July 1944. Japanese armies attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal and invade India, but were driven back into Burma with heavy losses. Together with the simultaneous Battle of Kohima on the road by which the encircled Allied forces at Imphal were relieved, the battle was the turning point of the Burma campaign, part of the South-East Asian Theatre of the Second World War. The Japanese defeat at Kohima and Imphal was the largest up until that time, with many of the Japanese deaths resulting from starvation, disease and exhaustion suffered during their retreat.
context_section_description: Mutaguchi planned to exploit the capture of Imphal by advancing to the Brahmaputra Valley. This would cut the Allied lines of communication to the front in northern Burma, where the American-led Northern Combat Area Command was attempting to construct the Ledo Road to link India and China by land, and to the airfields supplying the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek via an airlift over "The Hump" (the Himalaya Mountains). Although the staffs at Burma Area Army and at Southern Expeditionary Army Group (the supreme command for the Japanese forces in southeast Asia and the southern Pacific) had reservations over the scale of Mutaguchi's proposed operation, they were eventually won over by his persistent advocacy. Finally, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and Imperial General Headquarters gave their approval to the plan.
  Mutaguchi intended to isolate and destroy the Allied units in their forward positions and then capture Imphal. His plan was named U-Go, or Operation C. In detail:
  The 33rd Infantry Division under Lieutenant-General Motoso Yanagida would surround and destroy the 17th Indian Division at Tiddim, then attack Imphal from the south.
  Yamamoto Force, formed from units detached from the Japanese 33rd and 15th Divisions under Major-General Tsunoru Yamamoto (commander of 33rd Division's Infantry Group), would destroy the 20th Indian Division at Tamu, then attack Imphal from the east. The force was supported by the 14th Tank Regiment, equipped with 66 assorted tanks, under Lieutenant Colonel Nobuo Ueda and the 3rd Heavy Artillery Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Kazuo Mitsui.
  The 15th Infantry Division under Lieutenant-General Masafumi Yamauchi would envelop Imphal from the north. This division was still arriving from road-building duties in Thailand and was understrength at the start of the operation.
  In a separate subsidiary operation, the 31st Infantry Division under Lieutenant-General Kotoku Sato would isolate Imphal by capturing Kohima on the Imphal-Dimapur road, and then advance to Dimapur.
  At the insistence of Subhas Chandra Bose, leader of the Azad Hind (a movement which sought to overthrow British rule in India by force, with Japanese assistance), the Indian National Army made a substantial contribution. (Originally, the Japanese intended using them only for reconnaissance and propaganda.)
  Units of the First Division (initially the Subhas Brigade or 1st Guerrilla Regiment, less a battalion sent to the Arakan), covered the left flank of 33rd Division's advance.
  The 2nd Guerrilla Regiment was attached later in the battle to Yamamoto Force.
  The Special Services Group, redesignated the Bahadur Group, acted as scouts and pathfinders with the advanced Japanese units in the opening stages of the offensive. They were tasked to infiltrate through British lines and encourage units of the British Indian Army to defect.
  All of Mutaguchi's divisional commanders disagreed with the plan to some extent. Sato distrusted Mutaguchi's motives, and Yanagida openly derided his abrasive superior as a "blockhead." Yamauchi was already very ill and fatalistic. Their main reservations concerned supply. Mutaguchi had assumed that success would be achieved within three weeks, but adequate supplies after that period could be obtained only if the Japanese captured Allied supply dumps, as the torrential rains that spring season would inevitably make supply routes from the Chindwin impossible to traverse. Gambles such as Mutaguchi was making had worked in the past, but could no longer be relied upon, given nearly total Allied air superiority in the area and the improvement in morale and training of British and Indian troops. Mutaguchi proposed to use "Genghis Khan" rations, driving herds of buffalo and cattle rounded up throughout northern Burma across the Chindwin as meat rations on the hoof. However, most of these beasts died from lack of forage and their meat rotted many miles from the troops they were intended to supply.
  There were other weaknesses in the plan, which were revealed as the campaign progressed. The Japanese assumed that th
caption: Imphal and Kohima campaign
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