Fought between 8 March and 18 July 1944, the battles of Imphal and Kohima were the turning point of one of the most gruelling campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). The decisive Japanese defeat in north-east India became the springboard for the Fourteenth Army’s subsequent re-conquest of Burma.
Joining me for this episode is Robert Lyman, author of the excellent A War of Empires; Japan, India, Burma and Britain 1941-45.
The book covers the defeat of the British and Indian armies in 1941-42, the change of commanders, the restructuring, training of the army and new tactics, and the extraordinary victories culminating in Mandalay in May 1945 and the collapse of all Japanese forces in Burma.
But that is a big topic to cover. So I thought we would focus on the battle of Kohima and, to some extent, Imphal. In 2013, a British National Army Museum poll voted the Battles of Kohima and Imphal as ‘Britain's Greatest Battle’.
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146 - Stop Lines
145 - Bomb Aimers
144 - Alan Brooke: Churchill's Right-Hand Critic
143 - The Battle for Madagascar
142 - Mackenzie King
141 - Eighth Army versus Rommel
140 - How to kill a Panther tank
139 - German Uniforms of WWII
138 - Hang Tough: Major Dick Winters
137 - Operation Lena and Hitler's Plots to Blow up Britain
136 - The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944
135 - Spaniards in the British Army
134 - The Original Jeeps
133 - Rome
132 - The 746th Far East Air Force Band
131 - Economists at War
130 - The Texel Uprising: Night of Bayonets
129 - The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, November 1942–March 1943
128 - The Doolittle Raiders and their Fight for Justice
127 - The Longest Campaign
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