Arakan campaign (1942–1943)
The Arakan campaign of 1942-1943 began with a single, strategic prize in mind: Akyab Island. Fighters and transport aircraft flying from its all-weather airfield could reach most of Central Burma. Medium bombers could range as far as Rangoon, 330 miles away. For the battered Allied forces retreating from Burma into India, Akyab was the key that could unlock a counteroffensive. But to get it, they would first have to push down a narrow, jungle-smothered peninsula, fight through tidal creeks and timber bunkers, and face an enemy far better prepared for the terrain than they were.
The questions that haunted this campaign were not only military. Could exhausted, undertrained troops carry an offensive through some of the most difficult terrain in Asia? Could British commanders, many of them formed in other theaters, adapt quickly enough? And what happened when the answer to both questions turned out to be no?
Akyab Island sat at the southern tip of the Mayu Peninsula, and its value was almost entirely about geography. Fighters and transport aircraft operating at a radius of 250 miles from Akyab could cover most of Central Burma. The island's port gave the Allies a resupply option that bypassed the wretched roads of eastern India.
The peninsula itself was a trap for anyone trying to advance down it. The Mayu Range, narrow but precipitous and covered in jungle, divided the coastal plain from the fertile Kalapanzin River valley. The only established crossing between the two sides was a disused railway track that had been converted into a road, linking the port of Maungdaw on the west coast with Buthidaung in the east. Everything else was mountain, jungle, and the unpredictable network of tidal creeks called chaungs.
General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief in India, recognized that the Arakan front offered one advantage the rest of the Burma frontier lacked: the distances were comparatively short, and the communications infrastructure could theoretically be improved before the monsoon ended. In practice, the poor roads delayed the offensive until mid-December 1942. The original plan, Operation Cannibal, had called for an amphibious assault by the British 29th Brigade alongside a land advance by the 14th Indian Division. When 29th Brigade remained tied up in the Battle of Madagascar until November 1942, and landing craft could not be gathered in time, the amphibious element was dropped. By late December, only five motor launches, 72 landing craft, and three paddle steamers were available for any crossing attempt.
Lieutenant General William Slim took command of XV Corps on the 9th of June 1942, setting up headquarters at Barrackpore near Calcutta. The corps controlled two divisions: the 14th Indian Light Division, stationed around Chittagong facing the Arakan coast, and the 26th Indian Infantry Division in the Ganges Delta, which was still forming and occupied with internal security duties.
The 14th Division had originally been raised at Quetta in Baluchistan with service in Iraq and Persia in mind. It was fully formed and equipped when it arrived on the Arakan front, but its training, particularly in jungle warfare, was thin. The inadequacy ran deeper than any single unit. Drafts of reinforcements sent to replace casualties were found in some cases to have not even completed basic training. At one point, 14th Indian Division headquarters was simultaneously controlling nine infantry brigades rather than the usual three, and managing a large line of communications area as well. No divisional staff is equipped for that scale of responsibility.
The Eastern Army command itself was part of the problem. Its headquarters at Ranchi in Bihar under Lieutenant General Charles Broad had been, in peacetime, an administrative depot command. It had never expected to control active fighting formations on a contested frontier. When General Broad retired in July 1942, Lieutenant General Noel Irwin replaced him, and one of Irwin's first decisions was to reorganize the command arrangement: Eastern Army HQ would move to Barrackpur to run the Arakan offensive directly, while XV Corps moved to Ranchi to restore order in Bihar and raise fresh divisions.
On the 17th of December 1942, Major General Wilfrid Lewis Lloyd's 14th Indian Division began its advance south from Cox's Bazar. The Japanese force defending the Arakan front was "Miyawaki Force," named for its commander, Colonel Kosuke Miyawaki. It consisted of two battalions of the 213th Regiment, a mountain artillery battalion, and supporting detachments drawn from the Japanese 33rd Division.
Miyawaki's forward battalion, known as the "Isagoda Battalion" after its commander, had spent fifty days digging defensive positions to cover the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road. When ordered to pull back and join the main force near the tip of the peninsula, they gave up that prepared ground. Lloyd's division captured the road on the 22nd of December.
Then the situation shifted. Miyawaki learned that the Japanese 55th Division was being dispatched from Central Burma, and he was ordered to push forward to Donbaik on the west coast and Rathedaung on the east bank of the Mayu River to hold ground for the incoming division. On the 28th of December, the Isagoda Battalion seized Rathedaung, forestalling an Indian brigade attempting to take the town. Renewed attacks on Rathedaung between the 9th and the 10th of January were thrown back.
At Donbaik, the Japanese position was extraordinary in its compactness. A single company held a front barely a mile wide between the sea and the Mayu Range foothills, shielded by a tidal creek with banks nine feet high. Their bunkers were built from timber and earth, well concealed, and mutually supporting. When British and Indian infantry reached the bunkers, the defenders could call artillery and mortar fire onto their own position, forcing the attackers back. Field artillery could not penetrate the bunkers. Between the 7th and the 9th of January 1943, the Indian 47th Brigade attacked and was repulsed.
Wavell and Irwin visited Lloyd on the 10th of January. Lloyd asked for tanks. Irwin requested a single troop from the 50th Indian Tank Brigade, which was part of Slim's XV Corps at Ranchi. Both Slim and the brigade commander, Brigadier George Todd, argued that a full regiment of fifty or more tanks was needed. They were overruled. On the 1st of February, the Indian 55th Brigade attacked Donbaik supported by only eight Valentine tanks. Some tanks became stuck in ditches; others were knocked out by Japanese shellfire. The attack failed. Two days later, the Indian 123rd Brigade briefly gained some outlying positions at Rathedaung before being forced to withdraw.
General Irwin, despite the evidence in front of him, ordered another assault on Donbaik using the British 6th Brigade, one of the strongest formations on the front. On the 10th of March, he dispatched Lieutenant General Slim to report on the Arakan situation, though it was not yet intended that XV Corps take control of the front. Slim reported to Irwin that with nine brigades to command, 14th Indian Division had lost control of the front, and that morale was low in some units, reflected in what Slim described as unnecessary panics. Irwin made no changes.
For the next attack, Lloyd planned to send the 71st Indian Brigade along the spine of the Mayu Range as a flanking move, but Irwin had by then lost confidence in Lloyd and his brigadiers. Irwin took over the planning himself, diverting the 71st Brigade to the Mayu Valley and ordering the 6th Brigade, reinforced to six battalions, to attack on a narrow front. The brigade attacked on the 18th of March. By then, elements of the Japanese 55th Division had joined the Donbaik defenders. Despite heavy artillery support, the 6th Brigade could not break the bunkers and suffered 300 casualties.
When the 6th Brigade attacked at Donbaik, the third battalion of the Japanese 213th Regiment had crossed the Mayu River and struck the Indian 55th Brigade east of the range, forcing it to retreat. The Indian 47th Brigade was left isolated north of Rathedaung. Lloyd ordered the 47th Brigade to fall back across the Mayu Range on the 25th of March. Irwin overruled the order and dismissed Lloyd on the 29th of March, personally assuming command of 14th Division until the 26th Indian Division headquarters under Major General Cyril Lomax could take over.
The Japanese counter-attack struck on the night of the 5th of April. The main body of the Japanese 55th Division, designated "Tanahashi Force" and consisting mainly of the 112th Regiment, crossed the Mayu Range at a point British officers had regarded as impassable. They came down behind the leading British formations and captured the village of Indin.
At Indin, they overran the headquarters of the British 6th Brigade and captured its commander, Brigadier Ronald Cavendish, along with his adjutant and six staff officers. Cavendish had, just before being overrun, directed British guns to open fire on Indin. He, some of his staff, and some of their Japanese captors were killed shortly afterwards, almost certainly by that British artillery. The 47th Indian Brigade was forced to retreat across the Mayu Range in small parties, abandoning all equipment, and ceased to exist as a fighting force.
XV Corps headquarters under Slim belatedly assumed control of the Arakan front. Slim and Lomax anticipated that the Japanese would move to capture the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road and planned to encircle them near the two tunnels that carried the road through the Mayu Range. Eight British and Indian battalions were positioned for the encirclement. In late April the Japanese advanced northward, as Slim had predicted, meeting stiff flanking resistance. On the 4th of May, a British battalion defending a hill called Point 551 gave way. The Japanese cut the road. British and Indian troops in Buthidaung and the Kalapanzin valley were cut off. With no other route for motor vehicles across the range, they destroyed their transport before retreating north up the valley.
Irwin ordered Maungdaw held, but Slim and Lomax judged that the port was not prepared for a siege and that Japanese artillery could dominate the Naf River on which it stood, cutting off reinforcement by water. On the 11th of May, Maungdaw was abandoned and XV Corps fell back to Cox's Bazar. Arakan receives 200 inches of rainfall per year, and the monsoon arrived in force just as the retreat concluded, discouraging Japanese pursuit.
Irwin attempted to dismiss Slim from command of XV Corps after the retreat. Instead, Irwin was himself relieved of command of Eastern Army and returned to Britain on sick leave. His replacement, General George Giffard, was a very different figure: less abrasive, focused on rebuilding the army's morale and improving its health and training.
The causes of failure were not concealed. Irwin, Slim, and other officers were frank about them. The average British and Indian soldier had not been trained for jungle warfare. Repeated defeats compounded the damage to morale. Administration behind the front in India was poor. The roads used as supply routes were inadequate, and there were not enough landing craft and small ships to compensate.
Two developments helped pull attention away from the disaster. The first Chindit raid under Brigadier Orde Wingate concluded around this time, and its results were widely publicized to offset the depressing news from Arakan. At the senior command level, a broader reorganization followed: Wavell became Viceroy of India, and General Claude Auchinleck became Commander in Chief in India. The Indian Army establishment was restructured with a sharp focus on the Burma campaign, building the foundation for the battles that would reverse the situation over the following two years.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
What was the goal of the Arakan campaign of 1942-1943?
The goal was the capture of Akyab Island, which held a port and all-weather airfield at the tip of the Mayu Peninsula. Fighters and transport aircraft operating from Akyab could cover most of Central Burma at a radius of 250 miles, and medium bombers could reach Rangoon 330 miles away.
Why did the British fail to capture Donbaik during the Arakan campaign?
Japanese defenders at Donbaik constructed well-concealed, mutually supporting timber-and-earth bunkers that field artillery could not penetrate. A single Japanese company held a front shielded by a tidal creek with nine-foot banks. The attack on the 1st of February 1943 by the Indian 55th Brigade with only eight Valentine tanks failed when tanks became stuck in ditches or were knocked out by Japanese shellfire.
Who commanded the Japanese forces defending Arakan in 1942-1943?
The initial Japanese defense was led by Colonel Kosuke Miyawaki commanding "Miyawaki Force," which consisted of two battalions of the 213th Regiment drawn from the Japanese 33rd Division. The Japanese 55th Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Takeshi Koga, was later dispatched from Central Burma to reinforce the Arakan front.
What happened to Brigadier Ronald Cavendish at Indin?
Brigadier Ronald Cavendish, commander of the British 6th Brigade, was captured along with his adjutant and six staff officers when the Japanese overran his headquarters at the village of Indin on the night of the 5th of April 1943. Cavendish had directed British artillery to fire on Indin just before being overrun; he, some of his staff, and some of their Japanese captors were killed shortly afterwards, almost certainly by that British fire.
What were the main reasons the Arakan campaign of 1942-1943 failed?
British and Indian troops lacked training in jungle warfare, and repeated defeats severely damaged morale. Administration in rear areas in India was poor, roads used as supply routes were inadequate, and reinforcements in some cases had not even completed basic training. The 14th Indian Division headquarters was at one point controlling nine infantry brigades rather than the usual three, far beyond its capacity.
What happened to Lieutenant General Irwin after the Arakan campaign?
Lieutenant General Noel Irwin attempted to dismiss Lieutenant General Slim from command of XV Corps following the retreat from Arakan. Instead, Irwin was himself relieved of command of Eastern Army and returned to Britain on sick leave. He was replaced by General George Giffard, who focused on rebuilding the army's morale and improving its training.
All sources
1 references cited across the entry
- 1Ronald CavendishAlison Tebbutt — August 9, 2005