The Arakan Campaign of 1942–43 was the first tentative Allied attack into Burma, following the Japanese conquest of Burma earlier in 1942, during the Second World War. The British Army and British Indian Army were not ready for offensive actions in the difficult terrain they encountered, nor had the civil government, industry and transport infrastructure of Eastern India been organised to support the Army on the frontier with Burma. Japanese defenders occupying well-prepared positions repeatedly repulsed the British and Indian forces, who were then forced to retreat when the Japanese received reinforcements and counter-attacked.
Prelude
Situation in 1942
In May 1942, the Allies retreated from Burma, accompanied by many refugees, mainly Indian and Anglo-Burmese. Although the Japanese halted their advance on the Chindwin River (mainly because the heavy monsoon rains descended at this point and made the roads and tracks through the mountainous frontier between India and Burma impassable), the Allies (in particular the British India Command) feared that they would attack again after the monsoon ended. The Government of India and the state governments of the eastern provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa faced widespread disorder and a growing famine which would eventually become the disastrous Bengal famine of 1943.
The British reorganised their command in eastern India. The headquarters of Eastern Army, under Lieutenant General Charles Broad, were at Ranchi in Bihar. This army command was originally a peacetime administrative headquarters for depots and units stationed in Eastern India. It unexpectedly found itself in control of a very large rear communications area, and the troops on the frontier with Burma, roles for which it had not prepared in peacetime. Its fighting formations were the IV Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Noel Irwin, at Imphal in Manipur, and the newly formed XV Corps, commanded from 9 June 1942 by Lieutenant General William Slim, with its headquarters at Barrackpore, near Calcutta.
XV Corps in turn commanded 14th Indian (Light) Division which was stationed around Chittagong and faced the Burmese coastal province of Arakan, and the 26th Indian Infantry Division in the Ganges Delta. The 14th (Light) Division had been raised at Quetta in Baluchistan and was originally intended to form part of the Allied forces in Iraq and Persia. It was fully formed and equipped but lacked training, particularly in jungle warfare. The 26th Division was still forming, and was engaged in training and in internal security duties.
Allied plans
General Archibald Wavell, the Commander in Chief in India, was making plans to mount offensives into Burma even as Allied troops were retreating into India. On most parts of the front, roads and other lines of communications had to be improved or built from scratch before attacks could be considered, a task which would take at least a year, but on the Arakan front, distances were comparatively short and the necessary communications could theoretically be completed by the time the monsoon ended. In fact, the time required to improve the poor roads in the region delayed the start of the offensive until mid-December 1942.
In July, General Broad retired and Lieutenant General Irwin was appointed to command Eastern Army. He informed Lieutenant General Slim that the headquarters of Eastern Army and XV Corps were to exchange places for the offensive. Eastern Army HQ would move to Barrackpur and take direct command of the Arakan offensive, while XV Corps HQ moved to Ranchi to restore order in Bihar, and raise and train fresh divisions for later combat in Burma.
The limited goal of the British advance in Arakan in 1942 and 1943 was Akyab Island. This held a port and all-weather airfield, which were prominent in Allied plans to recover Burma. Fighters and transport aircraft, operating at a radius of from Akyab, could cover most of Central Burma, and medium bombers operating from Akyab could range as far as Rangoon, the capital of Burma, distant. The island lay at the end of the Mayu Peninsula. This was marked by a narrow but precipitous and jungle-covered range of hills, the Mayu Range, which separated the narrow coastal plain from the fertile rice-growing valley of the Kalapanzin River, which became the Mayu River below the town of Buthidaung. The only permanently established route across the range was a disused railway track, converted into a road, which linked Buthidaung with the port of Maungdaw on the west coast of the peninsula.