CASE STUDY CONCEPT: Campaign Strategies Cannot Succeed without Suitable Supply Chains – bold strategies depend on pragmatic logistics.
You are the officer in charge of logistics for the Japanese Army’s invasion of India in the spring of 1944. You have just been promoted into this position, and are now responsible for supporting four divisions attacking from Burma across some of the most forbidding jungle and mountainous terrain in the world. The campaign has been under way for almost two months.
The campaign strategy was to move quickly, overwhelm the opposing British and Indian forces, and drive deep into India. The battle plan called for a rapid advance enabling the army to supplement its own supplies by capturing stores of food and fuel from the British along the way. It was a bold move and the campaign started out well enough. Japanese soldiers attacked bravely and tenaciously, driving back opposing British and Indian forces. But within a few weeks the situation changed. Japanese units got bogged down in fighting around two British bases, Imphal and Kohima. Now they cannot live off the land, nor can they capture enough British supplies. Delivering the supplies these troops need has become a major challenge.
Then, just a week ago, the British and Americans launched counterattacks of their own in northern Burma. And suddenly more supplies are needed to support another Japanese division fighting against those counterattacks. This is not what the commanding general and his staff had planned for. But no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. So they brought you onboard to address the situation. Your job is to find a new way forward, and deliver the supplies these troops need.
Japanese Army Supply Chain in Burma
The outcome of this campaign was decided in large part by the Allied and Japanese supply chains and their respective abilities to deliver the food, fuel and ammunition needed by their fighting units. In this case study we explore what the Japanese supply chain looked like and how it worked. The structure of the Japanese supply chain supporting this campaign is shown in the screenshot below (click on screenshot for larger image).
NOTE: This is an advanced case. Work through the three challenges of the beginning case, “Cincinnati Seasonings” before taking on the challenges in this case.
[ Instructors, students and professionals can request a free SCM Globe trial demo ]
The main point of entry for Japanese supplies into Burma was the port of Rangoon (1) (Burma is now known as Myanmar, and Rangoon is now called Yangon). From Rangoon there were two main arteries for transporting supplies. One was the rail line that ran north from Rangoon to Myitkyina (pronounced Mee-chin-awe). About half way between Rangoon and Myitkyina, at a point where the railway crosses the Irrawaddy River, is the city of Mandalay (2), a major depot and freight transfer point. Branching out from Mandalay were roads that headed west and north toward the Indian border. The other main artery was the Irrawaddy River where barges could move supplies some 580 km (360 miles) north to the large Japanese air base at Myitkyina (3).
Supplies could be moved in bulk by rail and river barge from Rangoon to Mandalay. But beyond Mandalay it became complicated. From Mandalay supplies were transported by truck, rail and river barge to the various Japanese supply depots that supported the offensive. From these depots there was extensive use made of donkeys and mules to transport supplies across mountainous and jungle terrain to reach the Japanese divisions fighting British forces. The Japanese also made some use of transport aircraft flying from their airbase at Myitkyina to airdrop supplies to fighting units.
You have inherited a supply chain and operating model put in place by your predecessor. You will have the opportunity to redesign this supply chain to see if you can better meet the changing needs of the Japanese invading force. In working through this case you will gain an understanding of the impact of logistics on campaign strategy. Bold strategy calling for troops to attack in unexpected places is a good way to start a campaign. But unless adequate supplies can be delivered to those troops, it will not end well. See the footnotes at the bottom of this page for interesting historic details about this supply chain and the campaign it supported.
Plans of Attack and Counterattack
The Japanese plan called for crossing the northwest border of Burma to invade the eastern Indian state of Assam. The orange arrows in the screenshot below show where the Japanese attacks occurred, and the red circles show the location of the British bases they needed to capture. The blue lines show the supply chain network that the Japanese used to support these attacks (click on screenshots for larger images).
Four divisions with their supplies and equipment would make their way through dense jungles and mountainous terrain for distances of 100 km (60 miles) or more. After crossing this terrain, these divisions were to surprise and quickly capture the British bases at Imphal (4A) and Kohima (4B). Once that was accomplished, the Japanese army would push on into India. And there it would get needed food and fuel from captured British and Indian stockpiles. The attack would be launched in early March and victory had to be achieved by the end of April before the monsoon rains came. Once the rains started, the movement of supplies would become even more challenging as rivers overflowed and the many dirt roads and jungle paths turned into deep mud.
In the months before the offensive, Japanese supplies were stockpiled in forward storage depots marked by the three triangles. The southernmost depot was located at a point where the main road crossed the Chindwin River. From there trucks and river barges could be used to move supplies forward as the offensive began. The two northern storage depots however, relied on mule trains to move their supplies forward to the fighting units because there were no roads through the jungle and mountainous terrain in front of them.
The campaign launched on schedule in early March, and initially it made good progress. But by late March the British and Indians had withdrawn into their fortified bases and were resisting fiercely. The Japanese army continued to attack but made little progress. Even though the Japanese had these bases surrounded, British and Indian troops could rely on airdrops to provide them with the supplies they needed. This was possible because of the large numbers of British and American transport planes available, and because the Japanese air force did not have the capability to intercept and prevent those airdrops.
And then, in early May as the monsoon rains came on, British and American troops launched attacks of their own to disrupt the Japanese supply lines and force the Japanese to react to protect their air base at Myitkyina. British commandos (known as Chindits) set up a base called the “Blackpool Block” (5A) on a series of hills that overlooked the rail line that supplied Myitkyina. This allowed them to use artillery to cut that rail line. American troops (known as Merrill’s Marauders) moved down the Ledo Road from the north (5B) to attack the Japanese airbase. And again, these British and American troops were largely supplied by airdrops.
The Japanese responded by sending another of their divisions to attack the British and American forces. This put further demands on the Japanese supply chain just as it was struggling to deliver enough supplies to the four divisions attacking the British bases at Imphal and Kohima.
Estimates of Supply and Demand
This model aggregates the hundreds of individual products needed by an army into three general categories – Food, Fuel, and Ammunition. There is also a fourth product which is produced by the fighting units. That product is killed and wounded soldiers. The supply chain supporting the Japanese campaign in Burma needs to deliver enough food, fuel, and ammunition to meet demand at the combat units. The model from the library also has a product called “Wounded/KIA”. For extra realism you can add this product to the facilities along with casualty estimates which are recorded as production rates at the combat unit facilities. Assign vehicles that deliver supplies to take the wounded and KIA back with them on their return trips. Evacuate wounded and KIA all the way to Mandalay and Rangoon.
The supply chain model is built using certain estimates about demand for food, fuel and ammunition by the Japanese divisions. The model estimates daily demand for a Japanese infantry division in combat to be: 200 tons of food; 100 tons of fuel; and 300 tons of ammunition (see footnotes below for further information about estimates). These estimates are easily changed by adjusting the product demand numbers for any given Japanese division.
Products – standard case or container sizes are defined for each of the products used in the model. Review the price, weight and size numbers by clicking on the products in the edit screen. You can change any of these numbers if you have better information.
Facilities – The attacking Japanese units are defined as four facilities: 31st Div; 15th Div; 33rd Div / INA Div; and 18th Div. These facilities represent the main supply dumps for those divisions. From there supplies would filter out to the individual combat units. This model does not include further detail on that final leg of the supply chain. There is also another Japanese division, the 55th Div which is in garrison in the south of Burma. All facilities in the Japanese supply chain are defined and placed as accurately as possible. Zoom in on these facilities and turn on the satellite view to see the facilities and their surroundings. Click on the facilities in the edit screen to see or change their locations and numbers.
Product demand at a facility is determined by the type of facility it is and by the number of vehicles based at that facility. Demand numbers for an infantry division are noted above. The demand for fuel and food needed by vehicles and crews assigned to a given facility are shown as demand for those products at that facility.
Vehicles and Routes – five basic types of vehicles are defined in this model: rail freight cars; river barges; medium trucks; cargo planes; and mules. Vehicle speeds and fuel usage are set to reflect the conditions of the route (road or river or jungle path) the vehicle is using. Routes traveled by vehicles are laid out carefully so distances on these route are as accurate as possible.
Mental Models and Learning from Simulations
As head of logistics for this campaign, you get out your map and aerial reconnaissance photos, and begin drawing in the positions of various army units and their supply needs. You are creating a model of the situation to help you understand what is happening (situational awareness). In addition to the information about your own supply chain, you put in your best estimates concerning the British supply chain. You locate the two airbases from which British and American cargo planes are making airdrops of supplies to their surrounded troops at Imphal and Kohima, and you estimate their troops demand for supplies. You find yourself wishing you had their airlift capabilities (but you have only a fraction of their airlift).
You define the products, facilities, vehicles, and routes that make up the Japanese Army supply chain (load the supply chain model “Burma Campaign – Spring 1944” from the SCM Globe Library). Now run a simulation to see what is likely to happen based on the present state of the supply chain. You see the results in the screenshots below. Two points of failure appear after eight days. They show you are unable to deliver enough food to the 31st Division attacking Kohima, and you are not able to deliver enough fuel to the 18th Division fighting against the counterattacks. What will you do to fix this?
(click on screenshot to see larger image)
In thinking about what to do, you zoom in on the map to investigate the situations where the two supply chain failures occurred. You switch from the map view to the satellite view to get a better picture of the land and its implications for supply chain operations. The screenshot below shows the situation where the 31st Div has run out of food.
When you click on the supply depot supporting the 31st Div you see it has enough food on-hand, but it isn’t able to move enough food forward to meet demand. The squiggly green line going west across the mountains and jungle is the route your mule trains use to deliver supplies to the 31st Div. And the straight green line is the route followed by some of your cargo airplanes that have been airdropping supplies to 31st. Div. How can you get more supplies delivered more quickly to this division?
Then you look at the situation around the 18th Div defending the Myitkyina airbase (see screenshot below). Three things become clear right away. First of all, since the 18th Div is shifting from stationary garrison duties to an active combat role, it will certainly be needing more fuel to move its men and equipment, and more ammunition in order to attack the newly appeared British and American forces.
And second, you must keep the rail supply line to Myitkyina open if you are going to get adequate supplies moved up from Mandalay. You can move supplies by river barge but that is much slower and speed is of the essence right now. The screenshot shows how close the new British base is (red circle) to the rail line (shown in light blue). You tell the commander of the 18th Div that the British base has to be neutralized. And you promise you will deliver the extra fuel and ammunition he needs to do it.
The third thing you see is that there are a limited number of vehicles to move supplies. You are going to have to shift vehicles around; move vehicles from routes that are delivering more supplies than are needed and re-assign them to other routes where increased deliveries are required. There are some additional trucks, rail cars, barges, airplanes and mules that can found beyond what you already have, but the utmost efficiency of use for vehicles will be needed.
How Supplies Flow through this Supply Chain
A good way to start forming a picture of how your supply chain is working is to understand the flow of products. Where are they building up and where are they running out? The screenshots below show on-hand inventory levels for important points in your supply chain. The first three facilities shown below are the main depots at Rangoon, Mandalay and Myitkyina.
Supplies are building up in Rangoon and dropping in Mandalay; you need to move more products to Mandalay. The saw-tooth pattern of supplies in Myitkyina is because supplies do not arrive every day, they arrive every three or four days by rail or barge and during the time between arrivals, the on-hand amounts get drawn down to meet daily demands. The wounded and KIA product was added to this model and is shown by the green line on the graphs.
Then you look at the three facilities (shown above) that are the three forward depots where supplies were stockpiled to support the invasion of India. Kalewa Depot supports the 33rd and the INA Divs. It’s on-hand supplies are trending downward. Homalin Depot supports the 15th Div, and Hta Man Thi Depot supports the 31st Div. Supplies at both depots are holding steady.
And finally, you look at how well supplies from these forward depots are being moved up to meet the demands of the combat divisions.
You see the 33rd and INA Divs are getting enough supplies, maybe even a bit too much. You note that the 15th Div is getting more ammunition than it needs. The 31st Div just ran out of food, and you see it is about to run out of fuel and ammunition as well. You can also see the wounded and KIA are building up at these combat units, and they need to be evacuated.
Rebalancing Vehicles and Routes
Vehicles move products between facilities to meet demand, and routes are the paths they follow to make those deliveries. The amount of products that can be delivered are affected by the number and carrying capacity of the vehicles, the speed of the vehicles and the frequency with which vehicles depart on their routes. Here are specifications for the carrying capacity of the vehicles you have available:
VEHICLE | VOLUME CAPACITY | WEIGHT CAPACITY |
River Barge | 220 m3 | 20,000 kg |
Rail Freight Car | 110 m3 | 50,000 kg |
Medium Truck | 40 m3 | 4,500 kg (about 5 US Tons) |
Mule | 1.5 m3 | 80 kg |
Cargo Plane | 150 m3 | 2,500 kg |
See the vehicle information in the model by clicking on facilities and the vehicles assigned to those facilities. Look at the number of vehicles assigned and the routes they travel to deliver products. Look for areas where you can re-assign vehicles and adjust the mix of products delivered so as to better meet demand. And look for areas where vehicles could depart on their routes more frequently. But remember, the more frequently vehicles depart, the more wear and tear occurs and the more likely there will be vehicle breakdowns and missed deliveries.
Experience has shown you that when using airdrops of supplies from cargo planes, only about half of the dropped supplies actually reach the intended troops. So you reduce the cargo capacity of the cargo planes by half to reflect that finding (this will impose logic checks in the model to prevent delivering more supplies than the vehicle can now carry).
FACILITIES | VEHICLES | CARGO CAPACITY | DEPART DELAY |
Rangoon | 20 Barges | 4,400 m3 / 400,000 kg | 12 hrs |
60 Rail Cars | 6,600 m3 / 4,320,000 kg | 72 hrs | |
Mandalay | 20 Barges | 4,400 m3 / 400,000 kg | 6 hrs |
20 Rail Cars | 2,200 m3 / 1,440,000 kg | 48 hrs | |
100 Trucks | 6,000 m3 / 450,000 kg | 48 hrs | |
Myitkyina | 10 Cargo Planes | 750 m3 / 12,500 kg | 72 hrs |
Kalewa Depot | 20 Barges | 4,400 m3 / 400,000 kg | 48 hrs |
200 Trucks Grp1 | 6,000 m3 / 900,000 kg | 24 hrs | |
200 Trucks Grp2 | 6,000 m3 / 900,000 kg | 24 hrs | |
Homalin Depot | 25 Trucks | 150 m3 / 112,500 kg | 48 hrs |
400 Mules | 600 m3 / 32,000 kg | 24 hrs | |
Hta Man Thi Depot | 600 Mules | 900 m3 / 40,000 kg | 24 hrs |
15th Div | 400 Mules | 600 m3 / 32,000 kg | 24 hrs |
(one US ton equals about 900 kg)
Since you are working in a war zone, there are air raids from British and American fighter planes. At times they catch your supply convoys and destroy some of the vehicles. There are also attacks on your supply chain from enemy commando units. If you want to assume that 10 or 20 percent of vehicles get destroyed, you can model that assumption by reducing the cargo capacity of your vehicles by 10 or 20 percent. This will also require you to reduce product delivery quantities for those vehicles.
Your air cover to defend against these attacks comes mostly from Japanese fighter planes based at Myitkyina. If that base is overrun you will have no air cover so you want to keep that base supplied. Trucks are easier to hide from air attacks and can operate on more flexible schedules, but trucks are also the least efficient mode of transportation. Relative to the amount of cargo they can carry they consume a lot of fuel which cuts into the fuel available for the fighting units. The same is even more true for the cargo planes you have.
It is the slow moving river barges like those in the barge port at Mandalay (screenshot below) that are the most efficient means of transporting large amounts of supplies over long distances. And trains are the next most efficient means of transport. Yet barges and trains are also the most vulnerable to attacks from enemy aircraft.
You need to increase the delay between departures for barges leaving Mandalay from 6 hours to 24 or 48 hours, and also increase the number of barges leaving, so they can start their routes at night under cover of darkness. It’s a good idea to do the same with rail transport, increase use of trains and have them leave every 24 or 48 hours so they too leave at night. What is the best mix of barges, trains, trucks, planes and mules to use in this situation?
The overall amount of supplies being imported into Rangoon cannot be increased in the next 30 days, so you have to work with what you already have coming into Rangoon. The Rangoon depot shows these imports for the next 30 days as daily production numbers for food, fuel and ammunition.
There are some additional vehicles of various types that can be found and put into service in your supply chain. The table below shows this information.
VEHICLE | EXISTING | ADDITIONAL |
River Barges | 60 | 15 |
Rail Freight Cars | 73 | 50 |
Trucks | 725 | 80 |
Mules | 1,400 | 4,800 |
Cargo Planes | 10 | 5 |
YOUR CHALLENGE:
Create a supply chain to support this campaign for the next 30 days
The great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu said, “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics.” You need to find a way to support this campaign quickly or it will turn into a disaster. Here are some questions to consider and some issues to explore as you work with this case study:
- What vehicles will you re-assign from one route to another to improve overall delivery of supplies?
- How much can you do with the supply chain resources currently available? Create a supply chain model showing how you will deploy existing resources to provide the best support possible for this campaign.
- Identify the greatest risks facing supply chain operations and show what you can do to manage those risks. What assumptions do you use for percentages of vehicles destroyed on different routes? What happens if percentages of destroyed vehicles are 20 – 30 percent higher than you estimate?
- If you cannot completely meet the needs of the combat units with available resources, then estimate the additional amounts of products, facilities, vehicles and routes needed to do this.
- Based on what can be done with existing supply chain resources, what changes do you recommend to the campaign strategy so as to better match demands of the combat units with what the supply units can actually deliver?
MISSION REPORTING TEMPLATE — There is a reporting template for this case study that you can download. Use it to analyze your simulation data and make improvements to your supply chain design. The template is built for a 15-day period, and can be extended to cover 30 days. The reporting template is set up for the Battle of Smolensk supply chain, but look at how the reports read the product and simulation data – you will see how to change the spreadsheet as needed to accommodate this case study. The operations report shows facility and product detail, and the dashboard shows where the best opportunities are for improvement – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17c08CvrIv-a3hHelV-DPfUE6OFPi26-O9SfGNgPDv9c/edit#gid=1568884628
NOTES FOR USING THE MISSION REPORTING TEMPLATE — In addition to the original P&L report and KPIs, there are new features and tabs in the Mission Reporting template as described below:
- Ordering cost – an estimate of how much it costs an organization to place an order, receive the order, issue payment and put away the inventory delivered. Different companies have different ordering costs; estimates can range from $15 to $150 or more. Industry trade associations can provide data on average ordering costs for companies in their industries, or your company may already have an ordering cost it uses for EOQ calculations. The template uses a default cost of $35.00.
- Annual holding costs – often estimated at 20% of product price. Industry trade associations can provide data on average annual holding costs for companies in their industries.
- EOQ Delivery Amount and Frequency — these features use data from the supply chain model plus the ordering cost and holding costs to apply the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) equation to suggest an amount and frequency for product deliveries to different facilities. The numbers are only suggestions and often need to be adjusted, but they provide a starting point. See more about this in the online guide section “Cutting Inventory and Operating Costs“, scroll down to the heading “Use Economic Order Quantity to Calculate Delivery Amounts and Frequencies”
- Dashboard Tab — a high level view of overall supply chain performance. You assign weights to each of the performance categories (Inventory, Transportation, and Storage) to reflect your strategy for improving operations. Assign higher weights to the categories most critical to the success of a particular mission. This will focus people’s attention on the performance categories you most want to improve. Assign category performance targets that are ambitious but achievable. The dashboard calculates percent effectiveness for each facility and the overall plan by comparing the simulation results generated by your supply chain model to your predefined performance targets. Based on the weights assigned to each target, a net performance score is calculated for the whole supply chain plan. Performance targets are recommended by logistics planners and approved by the mission commander.
- Products Tab — enter the price, weight, and volume for each product in the supply chain model. These numbers will be used by the macro equations in the first two tabs to calculate supply chain KPIs and Dashboard displays.
[If you are using SCM Globe Professional version, mission reports can be generated automatically by clicking on the “Generate P&L Report” button on the Simulate Screen]
NOTE: To concentrate on the Japanese supply chain, you can set product demand at the British and American facilities to zero, and delete the vehicles delivering supplies to those facilities.
CREATE A SLIDE BRIEF FOR THE GENERAL – Make your findings and recommendations clear and concise. Back them up with screenshots and data from simulation results and mission reports to illustrate your main points.
FOR ADDED REALISM, do a live presentation of findings and recommendations to your instructor and classmates. Your instructor is the commanding general and your classmates are other officers on the general’s staff. Use your model and run simulations during your presentation to show what you recommend and why. Use simulations and simulation data to answer questions from the general and other staff officers. Be prepared for push back. Update your model, and run more simulations to show the results of different ideas and actions.
CONSIDER USING the mission and operations planning process (M&OP) as an organizing framework to guide your logistics planning — see case study “Nepal Earthquake Disaster Response Supply Chain” for explanation of how to use M&OP.
Get ideas for building and improving this supply chain in “Tips for Building Supply Chain Models”. There are also useful ideas to be found in “Reducing Inventory and Operating Costs”
ADVANCED LEVEL case study – work through a beginning level case such as Cincinnati Seasonings before attempting to work on this case.
** CASE UPDATE: The Burma Campaign supply chain model and case study was created by a team of wargamers. Our intention was to present the logistics dilemma faced by the Japanese Army, and engage people in trying to solve this dilemma. For years nobody was able to find a way to meet the army’s supply needs with available resources. Since that is also what happened in the real world, we assumed there was no way to “win” in this case. However, a student team at the Air Force Institute of Technology, in a class in April 2021, found a way to meet demands with available resources. They relocated vehicles, and found a combination of vehicles, schedules, and delivery routes that maximized transportation capabilities. Simulations showed their plan to redesign this supply chain would work, and would deliver the needed supplies. History might be different if this plan had been discovered and used by the Japanese Army in 1944.
SAVE BACKUP COPIES of your supply chain model from time to time as you make changes. Click “Save” button next to your model in Account Management screen. There is no “undo”, but if a change doesn’t work out, you can restore from a saved copy. And sometimes supply chain model files (json files) become damaged and they no longer work, so you want backup copies of your supply chain to restore from when that happens.
SHARE CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS to this model (.json file) with other SCM Globe users see “Download and Share Supply Chain Models”
Historical Footnotes:
- Location of specific Japanese and British units and information about supply chain operations was found in the book Japan’s Last Bid for Victory: The Invasion of India 1944, by Robert Lyman, 2011, The Praetorian Press, Barnsley, UK – http://www.amazon.com/JAPANS-LAST-BID-FOR-VICTORY/dp/1848845421
- Research on daily requirements of an Allied infantry division during World War II yielded an estimate of 650 US tons per day, of which 124 tons would be fuel. Here is the link “Supplying the Armies: Rations; POL; and Coal” – http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Logistics2/USA-E-Logistics2-7.html. And here is a discussion of fuel consumption of Allied divisions and an estimate of 650 tons of supplies needed per day – http://www.ww2f.com/topic/50169-fuel-consumption-of-allied-divisions/
- This model assumes Japanese divisions required somewhat less than Allied divisions, maybe about 8 – 10 percent less. That is how we arrived at 600 tons of supplies per day to support a Japanese infantry division in combat.
- Part of the Japanese supply chain to support operations in Burma was the Burma Railway built by the Japanese in 1942 and 1943 to move supplies and troops from Thailand to Burma. This railway provided a connection between existing rail lines in the two countries. It was built with the forced labor of about 60,000 Allied prisoners of war and 180,000 conscripted local workers. This is the railroad whose construction is depicted in the movie Bridge on the River Kwai – https://youtu.be/RlC7XBayj0s. Some 20 percent of the workforce died due to harsh working conditions and lack of food and medical care.
- Once in operation, the Burma Railway did not live up to expectations. It failed to deliver the quantities of supplies and troops that had been hoped for. Read more in the Wikipedia article “Burma Railway” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway. This rail line is not shown in the case study, and supplies it did deliver are recorded as part of the daily production amounts shown at the Rangoon Depot (the depot doesn’t actually produce supplies, but production amounts are used to represent amounts delivered by rail from Thailand and by Japanese cargo ships arriving in Rangoon harbor).
- Planning for this campaign, known as “Operation U-Go“, was based on extremely optimistic assumptions about the time it would take to capture the British bases at Imphal and Kohima. And unrealistic estimates were made for the amount of materiel and transport capability needed to keep Japanese troops supplied during the three to four weeks the campaign was planned to last. One of the few Japanese logistics experts in Burma, General Obata Nobuyoshi, was dismissed early in the preparations for this campaign after he described the campaign plan as “bakamono” — a fool’s enterprise. (http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/O/b/Obata_Nobuyoshi.htm)
- The general in charge of planning and conducting this campaign, General Renya Mutaguchi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renya_Mutaguchi) could not, or perhaps would not, understand the seriousness of the logistics situation around Imphal and Kohima as the campaign progressed. He simply told the soldiers to eat less, and ordered the supply units to work harder. A campaign planned to last three to four weeks lasted four months instead, and the result was one of the worst defeats suffered by the Japanese Army up to that time. More than half the Japanese losses (estimated at some 13,500 dead and another 48,500 wounded, sick, or disabled) were suffered after the fighting was over. Most casualties occurred during the chaotic retreat due to starvation, disease and exhaustion from lack of supplies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_U-Go).
- After the end of Operation U-Go, the Japanese withdrew many of their units to the east of the Irrawaddy River during the summer and fall of 1944, and moved their supply depot in Mandalay to Meiktila. The Irrawaddy became a main line of defense and was less secure as a transportation route. Meiktila was then a better place for a big supply depot because it was behind the front line yet still located at a transportation hub where main roads came together with a stop on the railway line from Rangoon.
- Commanding the British and Indian forces opposing the Japanese Army was the British General Sir William Slim. He fought the Japanese to a standstill at Imphal and Kohima, and then launched his own attack into Burma in December of 1944. He captured the Japanese supply depot at Meiktila early in his campaign, thus depriving Japanese units of needed supplies and weakening their fighting strength. General Slim and his 14th Army defeated the Japanese in Burma and captured Rangoon by May of 1945 (https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/william-slim). A hallmark of his campaign was his skillful use of logistics and effective coordination between air, infantry and armored forces.
Register on SCM Globe to gain access to this and all other case studies. Click the blue “Register” button on the Log In page (app.scmglobe.com) and buy a subscription (if you haven’t already) using a credit card or PayPal account. Then go to the SCM Globe library and click the “Import” button next to this case study. Scan the “Getting Started” section (if you haven’t already), and you are ready to go.