Thunder Run Meiktila with Jack Bowsher

In this Echoes of War Podcast Craig interviews Jack Bowsher, of The Forgotten War Podcast, and author of Forgotten Armour, who has just written a new book titled Thunder Run Meiktila 1945: The greatest combined arms manoeuvre battle of WW2.

Many histories of the Burma Campaign reach their peak with the remarkable battles of Imphal and Kohima in 1944. However, the subsequent reconquest of Burma in 1945 is often dismissed as merely “mopping up.” In reality, it marked the culmination of an arduous journey undertaken by the British and Indian armies since December 1941. This remarkable achievement occurred without the extensive resources allocated to other theaters, amid a landscape characterized by diverse and extreme geographic challenges.

The campaign, particularly around the Japanese supply hub in Meiktila, deserves to be legendary in our collective memory of the Second World War. Had it been executed by renowned commanders like Monty, Patton, Rommel, or Zhukov, it would be as celebrated as the battles of France, Alamein, the Bulge, Kursk, or Overlord. Yet, it stands as the most extraordinary battle you may have never heard of.

This campaign epitomized all-arms maneuver warfare of the Second World War, involving tanks, mechanized infantry, self-propelled artillery, and air support surging across the arid central Burma landscape, striking the Japanese Burma Area Army where least expected. Outnumbered and encircled, the 17th Indian Infantry Division and the 255th Indian Tank Brigade delivered a devastating blow to their adversaries in a battle that decisively ended Japanese dominance in Southeast Asia.

This is Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945.