15th August is celebrated as V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day) the day in 1945 when Japan surrendered, effectively ending World War II.
However, the campaign to push the Japanese out of Burma was the longest and bloodiest of World War II. This is emphasised by the following orders that were given to the Japanese soldiers.
'Continue in the task till all your ammunition is expended. If your hands are broken, fight with your feet. If your hands and feet are broken, fight with your teeth. If there is no breath left in your body, fight with your spirit. Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat.'
Japan had long resented the British presence in the Far East and with Hitler certain of victory in late 1941, they invaded Malaya and Burma to seize raw materials such as rubber and oil. British staff officers ridiculed the idea that the Japanese could be a serious fighting force and would be no match for a modern European army. Then came the brutally effective Japanese attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, on December 7th 1941. Japanese bombers were in action again three days later, sinking the battleship 'The Prince Of Wales' and the battle-cruiser 'Repulse' in the South China Sea with the loss of about 1,000 men. The news reverberated around the world and was followed almost immediately with humiliating news that Singapore had surrendered. This was followed by two and a half years of disaster and defeat for the British Army, as it retreated northwards through Burma in the face of a terrifying enemy. The Japanese completed their advance through Burma by late May 1942 and virtually all the remaining Allied troops had retreated north over the Indian border.
However, in the end, Japanese industrial capacity simply could not sustain a long war and when Germany surrendered, the Allies were able to release all of their weaponry for the war in South-East Asia, which in August 1945, culminated with the devastating strikes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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