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Chapter 1,600: Allied Counterattack (4)

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    At this time, the three divisions of the Japanese army, except for the 33rd Division on the South Road, could still be supplied along the highway, the two divisions on the Middle Road and the North Road had not been supplied. With the arrival of British reinforcements, the Japanese offensive  It also weakened.

    Mutaguchi ordered the 33rd Division, which had already received supplies, to step up its offensive to capture Imphal. As a result, it not only failed to capture Imphal, but also suffered heavy casualties.

    Lieutenant General Yanagida Genzo believes that continuing to fight in this way will soon lead to greater danger.

    In response to this, Mutaguchi was furious and sent a telegram on May 9 requesting the removal of Lieutenant General Yanagida Genzo from his post as commander of the 33rd Division.

    Subsequently, the Japanese base camp appointed Major General Nobuo Tanaka, commander of the 29th independent mixed brigade stationed in Thailand, as acting commander of the 33rd Division.

    When a large force is fighting, if the two sides are roughly evenly matched in strength and each other has great initiative in combat command, then the battle situation will not immediately cause drastic changes in a very short period of time.  In addition, the Imphal area was already in the rainy season at this time, and the combat activities of both sides were restricted.

    As the casualties of the 15th Army gradually increased in the Imphal area, the Southern Army requested the Japanese base camp to give priority to supplementing the soldiers of the Burmese Front Army.

    Subsequently, the Japanese base camp ordered the 49th Division of Saburo Takehara, which was established in North Korea in January 1944, to be transferred to Myanmar.

    Although the 15th Army suffered heavy casualties and the number of patients continued to increase, it still had to step up its attack on Imphal with the 33rd and 15th Divisions, but it was difficult to break the strong defense of the British Army.

    Mutaguchi believed that the failure of the 15th Division's continuous offensive was due to the incompetence of the division commander, so he made a request to replace the division commander, Lieutenant General Masafumi Yamauchi. The Japanese base camp immediately appointed Lieutenant General Uichi Shibata to succeed the 15th Division.  Head of the group.

    About a month and a half after the 15th Army attacked Imphal, the Japanese base camp was already very worried about the unfavorable conditions of this battle. When Tojo Hideki reported the battle situation to Emperor Hirohito, he stated the serious situation of the battle and determined that the battle would take place that day.  Lieutenant General Qin Yansanlang, deputy chief of staff, was sent to inspect.

    Qin Yanzaburo immediately led the General Affairs Section Chief and two staff officers to leave Tokyo. He first flew to Singapore and learned about the situation from the Chief of General Staff of the Southern Army, Lieutenant General Iimura Hao.  Later, he went to Sumatra and Java, and returned to Tokyo on May 14.

    Afterwards, Qin Yanzaburang reported on the current combat situation of the Southern Army in the war room of the General Staff Headquarters.

    He believed that the combat situation in Imphal was not good. Also present to listen to Qin Yanzaburo's report were the ministers and section chiefs of the General Staff Headquarters, as well as the heads of the Army Ministry and the Depot Directorate General.

    When Tojo spoke after listening to the report, he emphasized: Fight to the end and never be timid.

    Based on this decision, the Japanese base camp immediately sent a telegram instruction to the Southern Army, requesting to step up the attack on Imphal, and decided to transfer the 61st Infantry Regiment of Lieutenant General Masaro Baba's 4th Division to Sumatra to strengthen the 15th Army.

    In addition, in order to relieve the danger of the 18th Division on the secret attack side, it was decided to transfer three infantry brigades of the 56th Division under Lieutenant General Songshan Yuzo in Longling, Yunnan to the 18th Division's station.

    However, at this time, the Allied forces also began to take action. After the British 3rd Army arrived in Dimapur by train, it began to besiege the Japanese 31st Division of Kohima to the south.

    The division fought continuously in this area from the end of March to the end of May, and suffered considerable losses. The troops were generally short of food, the wounded lacked medicine, and many people were infected with malaria.  At that time, British tanks and artillery units, under the cover of the air force, arrived on the battlefield one after another, and their combat effectiveness was further enhanced.

    The three divisions of the Japanese army have reached the point where they are at their lowest strength. Due to the instructions from the base camp to continue to strengthen operations in the area, Mutaguchi Lian did not dare to report the true situation anymore.

    The commander of the Japanese 31st Division, Kotori Sato, repeatedly asked Mutaguchi for additional ammunition, but the answer he received was: continue to defend Cosima and contain the main force of the British army on the northern route, so that the British army could concentrate its efforts to capture Imphal.

    Since the much-needed ammunition for the 31st Division had not been replenished, and only 500 men of the division could participate in the battle at this moment, Sato Kotoku was angry and decided to retreat from Cosima alone.

    When Mutaguchi Ren learned of this situation, he sent his staff officer, Naganomura Momoyo, to convey his order to prohibit retreat and return to Cosima immediately.

    However, Sato's anger remained, accusing Mutaguchi of not paying attention to intelligence in his command, being an incompetent general, etc., and then led his remaining troops to retreat to Ukrul in the southeast.

    British Lieutenant General Siram has been leading his regiment to resist the Japanese army's long-term ground attack and aerial bombardment on the Imphal Plains.  After the Japanese army retreated from Cosima, the British 3rd Army moved south along the road and attacked Imphal.

    At this moment, the remnants of the two Japanese divisions in the area were surrounded and launchedChaos arose, and most of the troops retreated south along the highway.

    One group fled to the primeval forest in the east, and then headed towards the Chindon River in groups. On the way, they lost their way due to hunger, disease, fatigue, and continuous heavy rain. Many people died in the dense forest, and some weapons were difficult to carry.  And destroy it by yourself, throw it into the water or abandon it in the forest.

    When the Japanese 15th Army attacked Imphal, the total number was about 100,000. When it retreated to the area east of the Kindon River, only 30,000 were left, reducing the 220,000 Burma Front Army by one-third.

    And Kotoku Sato, who decided to retreat alone, was dismissed from his post on July 5.  All three division commanders who participated in a battle were dismissed, which was rare in the history of Japanese military operations.

    Mutaguchi Renya, who was called the "Ghost of Imphal" by the Japanese soldiers, and the Burmese Front Army Commander Kawabe Shozo were also dismissed from their posts on August 30 and returned to Japan to serve as staff chiefs.

    Sato Kotoku, who disobeyed orders on the battlefield, should be prosecuted and court-martialed according to Japanese military practice, but many people complained against him.

    When he arrived in Yangon at the end of July, he told Kabeon Shozo that he had disobeyed orders and decided to retreat alone, and was willing to wait for a military trial.

    Kawabe Shozo was very aware of his responsibility for the failure of the Imphal battle, and did not want to implicate more people, so he reported it to the Southern Army; Lieutenant General Sato Kotoku suddenly suffered from "acute disease" due to many days of extreme stress on the battlefield.  "Mental burnout syndrome", after a period of rest and treatment to return to normal, he will be appointed as the commander of the Myanmar Front Army.

    When the Japanese army was blocked in the Imphal area, the New 1st Army and the New 6th Army under the command of Zheng Dongguo of the Chinese Expeditionary Force in the Mengong area of ??northern Myanmar coordinated with the US military to attack the secret base.

    Among them, the 88th Regiment of the 30th Division, the 150th Regiment of the 50th Division, a company of heavy artillery and a battalion of the US Army formed the commando team.

    The commando team carried a radio station and approached the secret airfield through a forest path. They launched a surprise attack and repelled the defense of the 114th Regiment of the Japanese 18th Division. They occupied the airfield on May 17, and then  Using radio to communicate with the rear airport, the US military's transport fleet, escorted by fighter jets and fully loaded with troops and supplies, landed at the secret airport that day.

    Since then, it has become an airlift base for Chinese and American troops.  The 114th Regiment of the enemy's 18th Division still occupies the secret area.

    The defeat of the Japanese army in Imphal changed the war situation in Myanmar.

    At the same time, the Chinese expeditionary force assembled in western Yunnan Province took advantage of the frustration of the heavy Japanese offensive in Imphal and also began to launch an attack on the enemy's 56th Division west of the Nu River.

    This expeditionary force has a total of 6 corps and 14 divisions, plus a large number of technical arms. The total strength exceeds 150,000, and all of them are elites of the national army. Even the commander-in-chief is a famous former commander on the North China battlefield.  The commander of the First Theater Command, Wei Lihuang, said that the march of this unit south became the last straw to overwhelm the Japanese troops on the front line of Burma!  (Remember the website address: www.hlnovel.com
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