Burma ’44: From disaster to triumph

When the National Army Museum in London invited people some years ago to nominate ‘Britain’s greatest battle’, there was a clear winner. To the surprise of many, however, it wasn’t Blenheim, or Waterloo, or El Alamein that won the top spot – but the Battle of Imphal and Kohima, fought near the border between India and Burma (now Myanmar) on 8 March-18 July 1944. Despite this accolade, Imphal and Kohima remains relatively unknown. The multinational British Fourteenth Army, which achieved a savagely fought victory over the Japanese and their allies in the battle, was nicknamed the ‘Forgotten Army’; and the wider Burma campaign of 1942-1944, of which it was a part, is often sti