battles of Mandalay/Meiktila

Mandalay/Meiktila, battles of (1944). In mid-1944, after the failed Japanese attack on Imphal, Mountbatten, C-in-C of South-East Asia Command, issued orders for CAPITAL, an offensive into Burma by Slim's Fourteenth Army, with thrusts by the Chinese on its left and into the Arakan on its right. Rangoon was to be taken by an amphibious landing, DRACULA. The linked battles of Mandalay and Meiktila were part of Fourteenth Army's offensive.

Slim had two corps available for his attack, Messervy's IV and Stopford's XXXIII. Divisions were shifted between them as the battle developed, but each usually comprised at least two infantry divisions and a tank brigade. Slim's opponent, Lt Gen Kimura of the Burma Area Army, had been ordered to hold southern Burma, and to interfere as much as he could with Allied links with China. His three armies were understrength, and he was badly outclassed in the air. He hoped to hold a line from Lashio to Mandalay and on down the Irrawaddy south of Mandalay.

Slim sought to defeat the Japanese, not merely to capture ground, and sent XXXIII Corps against Mandalay while IV headed south and then swung eastwards to Meiktila. The Japanese 15th Division had been ordered to hold Mandalay to the last man, and both Fort Dufferin and Mandalay Hill, to its north, were splendid defensive positions. But 19th Indian Division, well handled by Maj Gen Rees, duly crossed the Irrawaddy and took the town in early March 1945 while Stopford's other divisions encircled the city. The IV Corps, meanwhile, crossed the Irrawaddy opposite Meiktila, and pushed its armour out of a bridgehead seized on 17 February. Meiktila was first invested, and then assaulted, by Maj Gen Cowan's 17th Indian Division. Fierce fighting followed, and when the Japanese fell back at the end of March they were intercepted by 20th Indian Division and suffered heavily.

Slim failed to encircle the bulk of Japanese forces holding Mandalay and Meiktila, and the balance of casualties did not seem to tell heavily in his favour. However, only 2, 600 of his 18, 000 casualties were killed, while the Japanese lost 6, 500 dead from total casualties of 13, 000. They also lost most of their tanks and guns, and were in no position to resist Slim's subsequent breakout towards Rangoon.

— Richard Holmes