Imphal, Battle of

In World War II, Allied operation in 1944 to hold Japanese forces back from an important road junction in the Manipur district of northeast India, 600 km/375 mi northwest of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta); the turning point in the Burma campaign.

Imphal was crucial to the Japanese plan for the invasion of India in 1944 and so the British general Field Marshal Sir William Slim devoted three divisions and extensive air support to its defence. Imphal held out for three months, with air and commando attacks disrupting the Japanese lines of supplies and communication, until the British were able to break the siege. The Japanese, starving and diseased, had by now lost 53,000 troops and fell back to the Chindwin River, abandoning their artillery and transport.