Kohima and Imphal turn back Japan's invasion of India
Slim's Fourteenth Army wins what troops later voted Britain's greatest battle
Quick facts
- Location
- Kohima and Imphal, northeast India
- Dates
- March to July 1944
- Allied commander
- Lieutenant General William Slim, Fourteenth Army
- Japanese losses
- Nearly 60,000 dead and wounded
- Result
- Allied victory; turning point of the Burma campaign
What happened
In March 1944 the Japanese Fifteenth Army launched an offensive from Burma into northeast India, aiming to seize British supply bases on the Imphal plain and cut the road linking Dimapur and Imphal at the town of Kohima, hoping to pre-empt an Allied invasion of Burma. By early April, British and Indian troops at both Kohima and Imphal were surrounded. At Kohima, a British Indian garrison of about 2,500 held off some 15,000 Japanese troops of the 31st Infantry Division in fighting so close that opposing soldiers were at times dug in on either side of a district commissioner's tennis court. Lieutenant General William Slim, commanding Fourteenth Army, and Lieutenant General Montagu Stopford's XXXIII Corps fought through to relieve the sieges, and by June 22 relief columns from Kohima linked up with the defenders of Imphal.
Why it matters
The Japanese offensive collapsed with almost 60,000 dead and wounded, one of the largest defeats the Imperial Japanese Army suffered in the war, and it became the springboard for the Allied reconquest of Burma. In 2013, Britain's National Army Museum polled the public and veterans, who voted Imphal-Kohima ahead of D-Day and Waterloo as Britain's greatest battle.
How we know
The National Army Museum's account of the campaign, drawing on unit records, documents the numerical mismatch at Kohima and the campaign's outcome; Slim's own postwar memoir corroborates the sequence of the relief operation.
Sources
- National Army Museum (UK). Battles of Imphal and Kohima · Reputable sourcenam.ac.uk · The domain "nam.ac.uk" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Imperial War Museums. 10 Photos of the World War 2 Battles of Imphal and Kohima · Reputable sourceiwm.org.uk · The domain "iwm.org.uk" is on our Reputable source registry.
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineWorld War II101 events · From a staged skirmish at a bridge outside Beijing to a charter signed in San Francisco, the deadliest conflict in history, every event sourced.View all →