Talk:Battle of Imphal

No. 152 Squadron RAF
I feel that the inclusion of this squadron is arbitrary, possibly a tribute reference. In my view the RAF Third Tactical Air Force article gives a much truer list of the squadrons involved, and a link to that (which I've made) ought to suffice. I would propose dropping the 152 squadron reference.

--David Woolley 00:30, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Imphal Box
My understanding is that the Imphal seige is often called the Imphal box but that term doesn't appear in the article. It does appear in a handful of Google hits, mainly in contexts where the authors seems to assume it is already common currency. I also believe I've heard it in my oral family history. It may well be used in the ITV World at War TV series, but my rather, rather than I, have the tape of that.

--David Woolley 00:30, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Imphal Box may be misleading. I don't recall seeing the term in any contemporary accounts. The defence of the plain was originally based on several "Boxes", each set up for all-round defence, and the Imphal Box may refer only to the single defensive area near Kanglatongbi airstrip, which during the siege was not directly attacked.

HLGallon 01:40, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Japanese plan
I have modified some assertions in this paragraph:

"...Mutaguchi's poor timing with regard to weather." The Japanese timing depended on the arrival of necessary reinforcements; 31st Division from Malaya and 15th Division from Thailand. The late arrival of these divisions was an indirect result of the hesitation at various superior HQ over the operation.

Mutaguchi' dismissal of Indian troops as inferior. Mutaguchi had direct experience of defeating badly trained British and Indian troops in Malaya and Singapore. I doubt whether any Indian performance in the Eighth Army would be relevant to his views. HLGallon 11:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * British and Indian Army troops sent out to the Far East in 1941 had no jungle training and had been trained earlier on the assumption that they would be fighting Germany and Italy, mostly in the Western Desert.


 * The Japanese knew in 1941 they would be fighting in the jungles, whereas the British and Indian armies, who were already busy fighting a war on the other side of the world, did not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.56 (talk) 09:01, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Revelation of Japanese "Operation U-Go" to British by Bose (dubious)
The article includes a claim that Subhas Chandra Bose unwittingly revealed -- to the British, via a double-agent, Bhagat Ram Talwar -- the impending 1944 Japanese offensive against northeast India ("Operation U-Go").

This claim appears in: Dr. Sat D. Sharma, India Marching:  Reflections from a Nationalist perspective (Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse, 2012), pages 120-121. I have found this claim nowhere else. (Note: "iUniverse" is a vanity press.)

The book's author substantiates his claim by quoting from a "recently released document" -- the source of which he does not identify. He even qualifies his quote from the document by writing that the document "read like this" -- implying that the quote was not exact.

Hence this claim -- that Bose unwittingly revealed Operation U-Go to the British -- should be suspect.

This claim also appears in Wikipedia's articles on the "Battle of Kohima" and the "Indian National Army".

Cwkmail (talk) 15:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you are advocating here. Are you suggesting that the claim should be removed, or perhaps tagged with ? HLGallon (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I suggest that the claim should be removed or at the very least tagged with "dubious". Cwkmail (talk) 16:47, 29 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Further findings: I've done further investigation of the claim that Subhas Chandra Bose revealed the Japanese operation U-Go to an enemy agent in Kabul.  First, Bose was not in Kabul during either 1943 or 1944 -- the period during which the Japanese were planning and executing Operation U-go; hence, the period when Bose could have revealed the operation.  Bose was in Europe until 1943, at which time he travelled via submarine to the Far East (see, for example, Wikipedia's article on Bose).  However, Bose did meet Bhagat Ram Talwar (who worked as an agent for the Soviets, Germans, Japanese, and British in India) in Kabul in 1941:  it was Talwar who organized and assisted in Bose's 1941 escape to Kabul from British custody in India.  (See, for example:  Bose Mihir, Raj, Secrets, Revolution:  A life of Subhas Chandra Bose (Norich, England:  Grice Chapman Publishing, 2004), Chapter 17:  The man called Silver and the Bose conspiracy.)  However, in 1941, Bose could not have betrayed Japan's Operation U-Go because the operation wasn't even conceived until 1943.  Hence, the claim that Bose unwittingly revealed Operation U-Go to an enemy agent must be the result of some author's confusion about dates.  Note that this claim still appears in Wikipedia's article "Battles and operations of the Indian National Army". Cwkmail (talk) 21:56, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

 * Ensured that the article is: within project scope, tagged for task forces, and assessed for class.


 * This article would benefit from: additional in-text citations. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:INDIA Banner/Manipur workgroup Addition
WP India with Manipur workgroup parameters was added to this article talk page because the article falls under Category:Manipur or its subcategories. Should you feel this addition is inappropriate, please undo my changes and update/remove the relavent categories to the article --  TinuCherian  (Wanna Talk?) - 05:47, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

War Minister or Prime Minister
In those days, War Minister is only responsible for administration of the Army. Hideki Tojo held positions of Prime Minister and War Minister. He also became Chief of the Army General Staff at Feb 1944.

The critical order, the Army supreme HQ order 1776 which stated execution of Imphal offensive, was issued at Jan 7,1944. At that time, Chief of the Army General Staff was Hajime Sugiyama. You can see his name in the order.

Current article described War Minister Tojo approved the plan. But it is not precise. If he was neither prime minister nor chief of the army General staff but War Minister, why he was so influential?

So I think War minister description should be replaced with Prime Minister. --Kmk75s (talk) 03:19, 12 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The source I have used (Allen, Burma: the Longest Campaign, p.166) does not give Tojo's appointment, at least at that page. Presumably it does so in earlier pages. The reference however does make it absolutely clear that the Army General Staff required Tojo's approval either as head of Government or head of the war effort. By all means correct Tojo's appointment if you have sources. HLGallon (talk) 18:47, 12 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what your point is. The imperial general headquarter needed Tojo's approve. It is correct. But Tojo was not chief of the Army General Staff on 7 Jan 1944. He enforced Sugiyama's resignation on Feb 22,1944 because of the disaster at Truk. Therefore his involvement of decision making was as Prime miniter(and War Minister) not chief of the Army general Staff. I think you would agree with a fact that Toji was prime minister and war minister when the decision was made.

"Prime minister Tojo approved the plan.' is better then 'War minister Tojo approved the plan'. Do you agree? --Kmk75s (talk) 00:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

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Serious shortage of maps
The current article is terribly short of maps of the battle area: northeast India, and northern Burma. The one map is pitifully small, and covers the whole Burma, NE India, southern China area, with practically no place names, geographic features (rivers, mountainous terrain, etc), infrastructure (roads especially) needed to back up the text. It will likely be somewhat difficult to locate suitable maps with names and legends appropriate for that time, but almost anything would help greatly to start to fill the abyss we have now. I regret that I am unable to undertake this project now, but it seems an opportunity, even for a new Wikipedian, to make a substantial contribution without too much effort or expertise. Copyright issues may be the biggest problem. The Wikipedia Commons is surely the first place to start. Thanks!! Wwheaton (talk) 02:21, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * G'day, I did a quick search on Commons and found this: File:The attack on Kohima, 1944.jpg. It could potentially be added below the current map. Would that be an improvement? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:21, 22 March 2018 (UTC)


 * An interesting and ultimately rather sad recent Japanese NHK documentary (in English) about the battle with Japanese survivors telling their own stories here; |The Battle of Imphal: A Chronicle of Horror

Darkdrium
@User:Darkdrium: There was recently a long discussion on Talk:Battle of the Coral Sea with User:Cinderella157 which addressed use of the word "decisive". And see also Module talk:Infobox military conflict/Archive 4. Stop edit-warring with your IPs. You have already been warned before. EtherealGate (talk) 00:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

What you see -- is what you get
In the "End of the battle" section, the last two sentences, states "The Allies recovered Tamu at the end of July. It was found to contain 550 unburied Japanese corpses, with over 100 more dying amongst them.". Even though the previous sentence leads into this concerning a withdrawal and things left behind, including "soldiers too badly wounded or sick to walk", the second sentence that there were "550 unburied Japanese corpses, with over 100 more dying amongst them", does seem to read that 100 corpses were dying among the 550 other corpses. Otr500 (talk) 07:48, 15 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Fixed! - hopefully it's clearer now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 10:11, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Korean Provisional Government as combatant
There has been an edit war over this. The problem has been largely the use by an new Wikipedia editor of largely Korean sources, which someone who does not know Korean cannot verify or check. Also, there is a question of undue weight. A translation of one of the sources provided by the (Korean) Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs reinforces this issue:

"The Inmyeon War Works was a unit belonging to the Korean Liberation Army, and from August 1943 to July 1945, it conducted joint operations with the British army on the Indo-Myanmar frontline against the Japanese forces"

This translation makes mistakes with several military terms. A nine-man section does not conduct "joint operations" with an army numbering hundreds of thousands. At most, the Korean contribution was a section attached to the HQ af an Indian division. Nobody denies that they provided useful or even invaluable services, broadcasting propaganda, translating captured documents and questioning the rare prisoner of war, but this is a long way from fighting as part of some Korean/British joint command. There are exhaustive sources on the Battle of Imphal and the Burma Campaign generally (Slim, Allen, McLynn etc.) which mention many countries' contribution, and which do not mention Korea or Koreans at all. Unless you are prepared to believe that this is some sort of conspiracy, it is a fair representation of the Korean contribution to the whole battle or campaign.

I cannot find any clear guidance on in WikiProject Military history as to what constitutes due or undue prominence in such cases, but common sense would suggest that a nationality be included only if its contingent formed a significant fraction of total number of combatants (e.g. see the Kingdom of Nepal in the Battle of Kohima or the Battle of Sangshak), or more rarely, their conduct materially affected the result.

The information could and should be incorporated into any article on the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea or perhaps the Korean Liberation Army but the info box of an article on a battle should not be turned into a cenotaph. HLGallon (talk) 18:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The Korean military is not known abroad because it sent troops disguised as British troops. Louis Mountbatten has asked the Korean Provisional Government to send troops. Em apple (talk) 13:50, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I have researched as much as I can, but can find only fragmentary references to Koreans serving in or attached to Indian Forward Broadcasting Units, which were attached to division or possibly corps HQ in Burma e.g. in . The Korean participation would have been to the Burma Campaign as a whole, or even the South East Asian Theatre of World War II, rather than to any one battle. As I have said, any further information should be incorporated first in the articles on the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea or the Korean Liberation Army. Care should also be taken to avoid self-aggrandising or peacock phrases or translations, which formed part of my earlier objection. A section does not have equal weight to a division; nor were IFBU sections "frontline troops" in the sense of infantry or other "teeth arms" units. I look forward to an expansion of the article on the KLA. HLGallon (talk) 20:08, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Mutaguchi's HQ location
A Japanese-language video mentioned that during the Imphal Campaign Mutaguchi resided in the "Karuizawa of Burma", perhaps a "hill station" with a cool climate. He was obviously not anywhere near the front. Where exactly was his headquarters located? 10:02, 10 September 2023 (UTC) Vagabond nanoda (talk) 10:02, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Japanese Fifteenth Army HQ, and therefore Mutaguchi also, were at Maymyo until 29 April, 1944. On that date it moved forward to Indainngyi. Maymyo was the summer capital of Burma during the British rule. It had an agreeable climate and lots of distracting facilities. So far as I can find out, Indainggyi is five miles north-east of Kalemyo, in Manipur. HLGallon (talk) 04:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)