In 1942 the Japanese had captured Burma from the British. The Japanese blocked the Burma Road -the overland route by which the Allies could send arms to China in her war against Japan. In 1943 the Allies planned to drive the Japanese out of Burma and re-open the Burma Road to China. In February 1943 a British Brigadier, began a guerrilla war behind the Japanese lines in Burma. His troops, the Chindits, lived and operated in the jungle, supplied from the air. The Japanese attacked in March 1944 at Imphal and Kohima. The British General, Slim's 14th Army (called the 'Forgotten Army', because it did not attract much attention in the West) was surrounded in both places but held out with supplies by air. A desperate four-month struggle here turned out to be the turning point in Burma. At Kohima the climax was a fight in a tennis court across which each side lobbed hand grenades. Weakened by disease, hunger and casualties, the Japanese forces gave up in the monsoon rains and retreated. In the meantime, Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese forces, under American leadership, had invaded northern Burma from India and taken Myitkyina. The Allied forces linked up at the end of 1944. By March 1945, the Burma Road had been cleared and convoys from Ledo in India began rolling into China again. Chiang Kai-shek then ordered all Chinese troops who had been fighting in Burma to return to China. Unfortunately, this freed the Japanese to concentrate all forces against the British in the centre, before Mandalay.

The Japanese hoped to catch the British 14th Army during the hazardous crossing of the wide Lrrawady River. General Slim's solution to the problem was to move through jungles and hills, during which the army built most of the roads on its way, to Meiktila. This surprised the Japanese and cut their supply line. In March 1945, the British captured Mandalay and the Japanese could not stop the rapid allied advances southwards. In May Rangoon was taken and the remaining Japanese forces surrendered in August