In March 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army launched Operation U-Go across the border from Burma into north east India. Their ambitions were simple: capture the two strategic locations of Kohima and Imphal. It was imperative for the Allied forces to repel these attacks. At Imphal the 14th Army were forced to hold off repeated attacks for several months, meanwhile, further north at Kohima, a combined British and Indian garrison engaged in close-combat fighting, finding themselves outnumbered and encircled…

Why ‘The Forgotten Army’? Commanded by Lieutenant-General William Slim, the Fourteenth Army played a decisive role in defeating the Imperial Japanese Army in Burma. However the emphasis in the press and media was on the war in Europe and in 1944, the invasion of Normandy. Thus the events in the Far East were largely overlooked…

The 1957 epic war film, ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ tells the story of a group of Allied prisoners of war during the building of the Burma Railway, otherwise known as the Death Railway. After the war, it was said that one man died for every railway sleeper laid along its 250 mile length, reflecting the high mortality rate among the POWs and civilian forced labour from the harsh conditions, brutality and disease.