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Battle of Imphal
The Battle of Imphal took place in Manipur district of North East India from April until June 1944. This, together with the simultaneous Battle of Kohima, was the turning point from the Japanese to the Allies in Burma Campaign part of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II.
Imphal was crucial to the Japanese plan for the invasion of India in 1944 and so Lieut-General Sir William Slim devoted Lieut-General Sir Geoffrey Scoones 's reinforced IV Corps , including the 5th and 7th Indian Divisions , and extensive air support, to its defence. Imphal held out for three months, with air and Chindits attacks disrupting the Japanese lines of supplies and communication, until the British were able to break the siege after their victory at Kohima. On June 22 British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 110, formally ending the sieges of Imphal and Kohima. The Japanese, starving and diseased, had by now lost 60,000 troops and fell back to the Chindwin river, abandoning their artillery and transport.
Royal Air Force
In the Battle of Imphal the Japanese brought up fighter formations for the first time for many weeks. RAF Third Tactical Air Force (TAF) swept them out of the Burma skies. Fighter bombers and medium bombers could then fly close air support to the Fourteenth Army. They shot up and bombed enemy concentrations, transport and transport infrastructure as well as other logistical targets. The monsoon in no way diminished their activity. The third TAF increased their sortie rate to 24,000 sorties during the worst four months of the monsoon, nearly six times the figure of the previous year’s record. Thanks to air superiority the Allies could fly men and materal into the airstrips at Imphal so although cut off by land, the town was not without a life line.
No. 152 Squadron RAF was one of the squadrons of the TAF. It moved to Burma on 19 December 1943. During the Battle of Imphal, the squadron operated from front-line strips supporting the 14th Army during its final conquest of Burma.
The medium bombers of Eastern Air Command ranged all over enemy-held Burma. The USAAF "heavies" went as far as Bangkok.
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