U-GO

All you want to know about U-GO

U Go offensive
Part of the Burma Campaign during World War II
Date March 1944 – June 1944
Location Manipur, India
Result Allied victory
Belligerents
Commanders
Strength
7 Infantry Divisions
1 Tank Brigade
2 Infantry Brigades		 5 Infantry Divisions
1 Tank Regiment
Casualties and losses
17,500 approx[citation needed] 55,000 approx[citation needed]
v • d • e
Japanese capture of Burma – Bilin River – Sittang Bridge – Pegu – Taukkyan – Toungoo – Shwedaung – Prome – Yenangyaung – Burma Campaign 1942-1943 – Chindits – Burma Campaign 1944 – U Go – Ngakyedauk – Imphal – Kohima – Burma Campaign 1944-1945 – Meiktila & Mandalay – Ramree Island – Dracula
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v • d • e
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Campaigns of World War II

The U Go offensive, or Operation C (ウ号作戦), was the Japanese offensive in March 1944 launched against Empire forces in the North-East Indian region of Manipur. Aimed at the direction of the Brahmaputra valley, through the two towns of Imphal and Kohima, the offensive along with the overlapping Ha Go offensive was the last of the major Japanese offensives during World War II. The offensive culminated in Battles of Imphal and Kohima where the Japanese and their allies were first held and then pushed back.

Contents

Origins of the Japanese plan

In 1942, the Japanese Army had driven the British, Indian and Chinese troops out of Burma. When heavy monsoon rains stopped campaigning, the British and Indian troops had occupied Imphal, the capital of Manipur state. This lay in a plain astride one of the few practicable routes over the jungle-covered mountains which separated India and Burma. The Japanese commander in Burma, Lieutenant General Shojiro Iida, was asked for his opinion on whether a renewed advance should be made into India after the rains ended. After conferring with his divisional commanders, Iida reported that it would be unwise to do so, because of the difficult terrain and supply problems.

During the year and a half which followed, the Allies reconstructed the lines of communication to Assam, in north-east India. The Allies, in particular the United States created several airbases in Assam from which supplies were flown to the Nationalist Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek and American forces in China.[1] This air route, which crossed several mountain ranges, was known as the hump. The Americans also began constructing the Ledo road, which they intended would form a land link from Assam to China.

Late in 1943, the Japanese command in Burma had been reorganised. General Iida was posted back to Japan and a new headquarters, Burma Area Army, was created under Lieutenant-General Masakasu Kawabe. One of its subordinate formations, responsible for the central part of the front facing Imphal and Assam, was Fifteenth Army, whose new commander was Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi.

From the moment he took command, Mutaguchi forcefully advocated an invasion of India. Rather than seeking a mere tactical victory, he planned to exploit the capture of Imphal by advancing to the Brahmaputra River valley, thereby cutting the Allied supply lines to their front in northern Burma, and to the airfields supplying the Nationalist Chinese. His motives for doing so appear to be complex. In late 1942, he had opposed such an attack as the terrain was unsuitable and the logistic problems seemed impossible to overcome. He had thought that this plan originated at a local level, but was ashamed of his earlier caution when he found that Imperial Army HQ had originally advocated it.[2] By design or chance, Mutaguchi had played a major part in several Japanese victories, ever since the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937. He believed it was his destiny to win the decisive battle of the war for Japan.

Mutaguchi may also have been goaded by the first Chindit expedition launched by the British under Orde Wingate early in 1943. Wingate's troops had apparently easily traversed terrain which Mutaguchi had earlier claimed would be impassable to the Japanese 18th Division which he commanded at the time.[2] The Allies had widely publicised the successful aspects of Wingate's expedition while concealing their losses to disease and exhaustion, possibly misleading Mutaguchi and some of his staff as to the difficulties they would later face.

While the staff of Burma Area Army were prepared to push the Japanese forward defensive into the mountainous frontier with India[3], they firmly rejected Mutaguchi's ambitious proposal. However, Southern Expeditionary Army Group, the headquarters for all Japanese forces in South East Asia, were in favour of it. Kawabe's staff tried to persuade Southern Expeditionary Army Group that there were severe logistical risks with Mutaguchi's plan, only to find that the Japanese Imperial Army HQ in Tokyo now supported it.

To some extent, Mutaguchi and War Minister Hideki Tojo were influenced by Subash Chandra Bose, who led the Azad Hind, a militant movement which was dedicated to freeing India from British rule, and armed forces, the Azad Hind Fauj or Indian National Army (INA). The INA was composed mainly of former prisoners of war from the British Indian Army who had been captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore and Indian expatriates in South East Asia, who had decided to join the Japanese war effort. Bose was eager for the INA to participate in any invasion of India, and persuaded several Japanese that a victory such as Mutaguchi anticipated would lead to the collapse of British rule in India. The idea that their western boundary would be controlled by a more friendly government was attractive.[4] It would also have been consistent with the idea that Japanese expansion into Asia was part of an effort to support Asian government of Asia and against western colonialism.[5][6]

In the end, the various Japanese headquarters allowed the plan, designated U-GO or Operation C (ウ号作戦), to proceed, because a mere passive defence of Burma against the various Allied threats would require as many reinforcements as the attack on Imphal. Also, if the operation C were successful, almost all the Allied attacks on Burma would have to be abandoned. Neither Lieutenant General Kawabe nor Field Marshal Hisaichi Terauchi, the commander-in-chief of Southern Expeditionary Army Group, were given any opportunity to veto the operation, nor to exercise much control over it once it was launched.

Japanese plans

The Allies were preparing to take the offensive themselves in early 1944. The Indian XV Corps was advancing in the coastal Arakan province, while the Indian IV Corps had pushed two Indian infantry divisions almost to the Chindwin River at Tamu and Tiddim. These two divisions were widely separated and vulnerable to being isolated.

The Japanese planned that a division from the Twenty-Eighth Army would launch a diversionary attack in the Arakan, codenamed Ha Go, in the first week of February. This would attract Allied reserves from Assam, and also create the impression that the Japanese intended to attack Bengal through Chittagong.

In the centre, Mutaguchi's Fifteenth Army would launch the main attack into Manipur in the first week in March, aiming to capture Imphal and Kohima, scattering British forces and forestalling any offensive movements against Burma.[7][8] In detail, the Fifteenth Army plans were:

At the insistence of Bose, two brigades from the Indian National Army were also assigned to the attacks on Imphal from the south and east. The Japanese had originally intended using the INA only for reconnaissance and propaganda.

The staff at Burma Area Army had originally thought this plan too risky. They believed it was unwise to separate the attacking forces so widely, but several officers who were vocal in their opposition were transferred.[9] Mutaguchi's divisional commanders were also pessimistic. They thought that Mutaguchi was gambling too heavily on gaining early success to solve supply problems. Some of them thought him a "blockhead", or reckless.

Allied plans

In early 1944, the Allied formations in Assam and Arakan were part of the British Fourteenth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General William Slim. Over the preceding year, since the failure of an earlier offensive in the Arakan, he and his predecessor, General George Giffard, had been striving to improve the health, training and morale of the British and Indian units of the army. Through improvements in the lines of communication, better administration in the rear areas, and above all, better supply of fresh rations and medicines, these efforts had been successful. The Allies had also developed methods to counter the standard Japanese tactics of outflanking and isolating formations. In particular, they would increasingly depend upon aircraft to supply cut-off units. The Japanese had not anticipated this, and their attacks would be thwarted several times.

From various intelligence sources, Slim and Lieutenant General Geoffrey Scoones (commanding Indian IV Corps) had learned of the general intentions of the Japanese to launch an offensive, although they did not have specific information on the Japanese objectives and were to be suprised several times when the Japanese did launch their attacks. Rather than anticipate the Japanese by attacking across the Chindwin, or trying to defend the line of the river itself, Slim intended to exploit the Japanese logistical weaknesses by withdrawing into Imphal to fight a defensive battle where the Japanese would be unable to supply their troops.

Ha Go

Main article: Battle of Ngakyedauk

The diversionary Japanese attack in Arakan began on February 5. A force from the Japanese 55th Division infiltrated the lines of Indian XV Corps to overrun a Indian divisional headquarters and isolate the Corps' forward divisions. When they tried to press their attacks against a hastily-fortified administrative area known as the "Admin Box", they found that Allied aircraft dropped supplies to the garrison, while the Japanese themselves were cut off from their supply sources and starved. British and Indian tanks and infantry broke through a hill pass to relieve the defenders of the Box. The ill-supplied and starving Japanese forces were forced to withdraw.[10]

U Go

Imphal

Main article: Battle of Imphal

The main U Go offensive began on March 6. Slim and Scoones had given their forward divisions orders to withdraw too late. The Indian 20th Division withdrew safely, but the Indian 17th Division was cut off and forced to fight its way back into the Imphal plain. Scoones was forced to commit almost all his reserves to help the 17th Division. Because the diversionary offensive in the Arakan had already failed, the Allies were able to fly a division (including its artillery and front-line transport) from the Arakan front to Imphal, in time to prevent the Japanese 15th Division overrunning Imphal from the north.

During April, the Japanese attacks against the defences at the edge of the Imphal plain were all held. In May, IV Corps began a counter-offensive, pushing northward to link up with a relieving force fighting its way southward from Kohima. Although progress was slow, the Japanese 15th Division was forced to withdraw through lack of supply, and the Allies reopened the Kohima-Imphal road on June 22, ending the siege (although the Japanese continued to mount attacks from the south).

Kohima

Main article: Battle of Kohima

The battle of Kohima took place in two stages. From April 3 to April 16, the Japanese 31st Division attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road from Dimapur to Imphal on which IV Corps at Imphal depended for supply. At this point, the small British force at Kohima was relieved, and from April 18 to May 16, the newly-arrived Indian XXXIII Corps counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. At this point, with the Japanese starving, Major General Kotoku Sato ordered his division to withdraw. Although a detachment continued to fight rearguard actions to block the road, XXXIII Corps drove south to link up with the defenders of Imphal on June 22.

Retreat

Mutaguchi continued to order fresh attacks, but by late June it was clear that the starving and disease-ridden Japanese formations were in no state to obey. When he realised that none of his formations were obeying his orders for a renewed attack, Mutaguchi finally ordered the offensive to be broken off on 3 July. The Japanese, reduced in many cases to a rabble, fell back to the Chindwin river, abandoning their artillery, transport, and soldiers too sick to walk.

Impact

The defeat at Kohima and Imphal was the largest defeat to that date in Japanese history. The British and Indian forces had lost around 16,987 men, dead, missing and wounded.[11] The Japanese suffered 60,643 casualties, including 13,376 dead.[11] Most of these losses were the result of starvation, disease and exhaustion.

The defeat resulted in sweeping changes in command within the Japanese Army in Burma. Mutaguchi sacked all his division commanders during the operation, before being sacked himself on August 30. Kawabe, whose health was broken, was also dismissed. Many of the senior staff officers at the headquarters of Fifteenth Army and Burma Area Army were also transferred to divisional or regimental commands.[12]

References

  • Fay, Peter W. (1993), The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press., ISBN 0472083422.
  • Lebra, Joyce C. (1977), Japanese trained armies in South-East Asia, New York, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231039956.
  • Allen, Louis (1984), Burma: The Longest War, J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., ISBN 0-460-02474-4.

Notes

  1. ^ Lebra 1977, p. 20
  2. ^ a b Louis Allen, Burma: The Longest War, pp.152-153
  3. ^ Louis Allen, Burma: The Longest War, p.158
  4. ^ Lebra 1977, p. 20
  5. ^ Freedom Depends on Nippon Victory. The Syonan Sinbun, 26 January 1943
  6. ^ Lebra 1977, p. 20
  7. ^ Fay 1993, p. 281
  8. ^ Fay 1993, p. 265
  9. ^ Louis Allen, Burma: The Longest War, pp.159-162
  10. ^ Fay 1993, p. 264
  11. ^ a b Louis Allen, Burma: The Longest War, p.638
  12. ^ Louis Allen, Burma: The Longest War, p.386

Further reading

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_U-Go"

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