Why didn't Japan fight India in World War II?

Japan did not take a pass on British India, in 1944, the Japanese army had attacked the northeastern part of India, the Japanese army headquarters on January 7, 1944 to "mainland finger No. 1776" directive, issued the code name "U" of the Imphal combat plan The plan was to capture the key areas of Imphal and Kohima, and then control the entire East India region. Imphal was a border city in eastern India on the border with Burma, located on the main transportation route from Chittagong (present-day Bangladesh) to the eastern Indian state of Assam. The city is surrounded by the Manipur mountain range, and in its immediate vicinity is the Imphal Plain, which is 40 miles long and 20 miles wide. Since the British army retreated from Burma in defeat, the British have made Imphal a huge military and logistical base. The plains were dotted with barracks, hospitals, armories, ammunition depots, and munitions stores. The Japanese attacking force was the 15th Burma Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Lianya Mutaguchi, known as "Little Tojo," and comprising the 15th, 31st and 33rd divisions. The British forces stationed in Imphal and Kohima were commanded by General Slim's 14th Army Group, with the 4th, 15th, and 33rd Armies, and on March 8, 1944, Lian-Ya Mutaguchi led three divisions of the 15th Army*** about 100,000 men and drove a large number of live cows and goats, which were used as meat supplies, across the Indo-Burma border on the Chindwin River, which was the prelude to the Battle of Imphal. Mutaguchi Lianya stood on the banks of the Chindon River, spouting the following words, declaring, "The Army has now reached the point of invincibility, and the Sun Flag will proclaim that the day of our certain victory in India is not far off." When Lord Mountbatten, Commander-in-Chief of the British South East Asian Army, learned of the news that the Japanese had crossed the Chindwin River, he promptly visited the British 14th Army Group Command in person. After listening to Group Commander Slim's report on the military situation, Mountbatten decided that the troops defending along the border west of the Chindwin River should be withdrawn to the high ground near Imphal to organize a defense, so that the Japanese attacking forces would be far away from their own rear bases, and that the Japanese army would not only be forced to fight with their backs to the wide Chindwin River, but also have to rely entirely on the very insecure jungle transport routes. In addition, Allied air superiority would not only ensure the supply of supplies to some of the British units that might be encircled, but also bomb Japanese ground convoys, preventing them from obtaining supplies. Also, since the rainy season was about to turn some of the dry riverbeds into raging rapids, the Japanese had to win quickly before the rains came or they would have to face a disaster. Of Mountbatten's decision, war historians at the Japanese Defense Agency after the war said, "It struck at the very heart of the Japanese army's problems, which Lieutenant General Lenya Mutaguchi did not care much about."　　Once all of the Japanese 15th Army had crossed the Chindon River, it then split into three groups, attacking Imphal from the south and east with the 33rd and 15th Divisions, respectively, while the 31st Division attacked Kohima, north of Imphal. The Japanese made relatively good initial progress, and on March 28, the 33rd Division hit the Bisimbur area, about 20 kilometers southwest of Imphal, blocking the southern approaches to Imphal. Meanwhile, the 15th Division captured Misuan between Imphal and Kohima, blocking the northern approaches to Imphal. The 31st Division, which was attacking Kohima, also reached the outskirts of Kohima.　　In the face of the Japanese two divisions had formed a north-south siege of Imphal, the only two disgruntled divisions stationed in the Imphal area were the Anglo-Indian 17th and Anglo-Indian 20th Divisions of the British 4th Army under the command of Lt. Gen. Skunas. Scunners urgently telephoned Group Commander Slim to send reinforcements, while the main body of the Group's 15th Army was still 300 miles away in the Rakhine region and would take three weeks to arrive on the ground. Mountbatten immediately turned to the Americans for help in airlifting troops. The U.S. quickly agreed to the British request, from late March onwards to the Himalayas "Hump" transport line for the 45 "Dakota" transport aircraft lent to Mountbatten use. American "Dakota" is indeed a life-saving gift, these 45 transport planes loaded with the 15th Army's 5th Anglo-Indian Division and all the guns and artillery, from Rakhine to the plains of Imphal, in cooperation with the troops of the 4th Army to defend Imphal.　　After the Japanese 33rd and 15th Divisions formed a north-south pincer movement against Imphal, in early April, Lianya Mutaguchi decided to use the 33rd Division as the main attacking force and gradually advance towards Imphal from the southeast. In order to strengthen the attack force of the division, he transferred tanks and heavy artillery from Yamamoto detachment, and two infantry brigades from the 53rd Division, which had been newly integrated into the 15th Army, to reinforce, and personally commanded the battle in the 33rd Division. 10 April, the Japanese army captured the Sheyam Pass on the Boreal Highway to the southeast of Imphal, and the British and Indian forces were forced to retreat to Tannupal, which directly overlooked the main highway. Believing that victory was in sight, Lianya Mutaguchi mobilized another group of fresh troops and attempted to break through the defenses at Tannupal. After a series of frantic attacks for several days and nights, the Japanese made some progress, and the British-Indian defense line was forced to move back. At this time, Mutaguchi Lianya, was indeed close to breaking through the opposing defense line. However, his troops were exhausted after days of fierce fighting, officers and men lacked sustenance, rations fell from 6 taels at the time of departure to 4 taels, 3 taels, 1.5 taels, or even 0.3 taels, and combat effectiveness declined greatly. This was very different for the British and Indian troops, who were provided with items such as cigarettes and sweet liquor, in addition to the basic necessities of life, on a daily basis.　　The rainy season was fast approaching, and the ground gradually became too muddy to walk on. In order to make one last effort, Lenya Mutaguchi decided to change the direction of the main attack to the north of Imphal in an attempt to penetrate Imphal from the north. To this end, the Japanese advanced through slippery jungle paths, and on June 10, the 33rd Japanese Division and a part of the 15th Division collided with the 20th British and Indian Divisions in the jungle, and fierce fighting ensued. The Japanese soldiers, supported by the spirit of "Bushido" and urged by officers at all levels, endured hunger and fought to the death in the continuous rain, and on June 22, they miraculously broke through the British and Indian army's barricade, rushed out of the jungle, and fought their way to the edge of Imphal. Japanese officers and soldiers, "looking at the streets of Imphal, Kiso prayed for the success of the battle". At this point, however, they had no strength left to launch an attack. It was indeed a great irony for the Japanese that they had reached the doorstep of the British forces in Imphal after months of bitter fighting, only to find themselves unable to move in again. Similar to the battle in Imphal, the Japanese 31st Division's attack in the direction of Kohima was also at a dead end.　　With the onset of the rainy season, more than 30,000 Japanese soldiers contracted diseases such as malaria, dysentery, cholera and influenza, especially typhoid, the army's nemesis, which spread rampantly. Due to the lack of medicines and medical equipment, they had to watch the sick soldiers suffer from the disease. "Soldiers' skin was often covered with ulcers and abscesses, and they lay in soaked clothes and let the ants bite." The jungle in the rainy season was a steaming green hell, and the soldiers, suffering from starvation and disease, died in their thousands, one by one. Lianya Mutaguchi felt that he should retreat on all fronts, and Lieutenant General Sato, the commander of the 31st Division on the Kohima front, led the main force of the 31st Division to retreat without his consent.　　On June 25, the starving and sick Japanese 31st Division attacking Kohima began to retreat along a valley path toward Ukhrul. Lewis Pew, commander of the British 33rd Brigade, later recalled the sorry state of the Japanese forces: "My brigade was placed between the retreating Japanese troops, who were accompanied by a large number of sick and wounded, and their nearest destination, Ukhrul. There was no hope for the enemy; they had no food, no medicine, no nothing. They were weakened and their mouths were stuffed with weeds. The ...... bodies of Japanese soldiers were floating in the mud on the road, which was deep enough to sink into. The equipment scattered in all directions is a testimony to the undignified rout. ...... Soldiers who had wanted to be conquerors of India in the first place were now able to escape from under fire, and, with all their diseases, were struggling painfully forward along the innumerable jungle paths. ......"　　At midnight on July 2, with the consent of Tokyo's main headquarters, the Southern Army Command formally issued an order to cease operations on the USS Uhura. For the sake of sound, the order labeled the operation as "retreat operation". The Japanese so-called "retreat" was in fact a real rout. As the British troops pushed on down the Tietung road toward the Chinden River, they saw the full extent of the defeat: "Barefooted corpses everywhere, soldiers lying like skeletons in the mud; bombed transports and burnt-out tanks on the move; guns, ammunition and military equipment thrown all over the ground by the exhausted soldiers."　　The misery of the Japanese troops was recorded by the Japanese themselves, "This retreat was a grueling battle unparalleled in the history of Japanese warfare. The divisions are in a difficult environment, and the generals are also due to the long hard fighting and supply cut off, has long been exhausted; many sick and wounded that use all the troops can not carry escort, and in the first line of personnel are mostly suffering from malaria, dysentery and foot disease, medical supplies, but unprepared for the supply. ...... The vehicles were completely immobile due to the muddy and crumbling roads. Moreover, at the peak of the rainy season, the Manipu, Yana, Nyawa and Chindwin rivers, not to mention all the riverbeds in our path, were flooded and inundated with water. As for our troops to cross the river equipment, equipment, there are few, no help. ...... Some troops of the sick and wounded on foot first, action difficult most of the choice of suicide. Patients on foot, in the dense forests along the way to exhaustion of the fallen, was swallowed by the turbidity of the unknown whereabouts of countless people, it is really a ghost cry, miserable.　　August 20, the Japanese army routed to the Chindwin River. At this time the Chintun River due to heavy rain and flash floods, the width of the river has reached more than 1,500 meters, and the river crossing points are exposed to British artillery and aircraft strafing and bombing. According to the Japanese materials, "At that time, more than 5,000 seriously wounded and sick soldiers of our army were gathered and groaning at the river crossing points, and on August 25th, our army started to retreat across the river under such circumstances. After the 31st division, the 15th division rear-guard troops of the fight to the death and the struggle of the river crossing combat team, finally in the night half of August 30th, so that the last soldier crossed to the east bank of the Chindon River. ...... The 33rd Division had already suffered heavy losses and had to fight the enemy in the back. However, the military department was unable to assist them, and had to trust in the brave fighting spirit of the division, expecting them to break through the enemy's encirclement by their own strength and retreat backward." By the beginning of September, the Japanese 15th Army had not a single soldier left on the west bank of the Chindwin River, and the Battle of Imphal, which they had initiated by crossing the Chindwin River half a year earlier, thus ended in a complete defeat.　　The Battle of Imphal was a famous battle in the Second World War. Western and Japanese military historians rate it as one of the worst defeats in land warfare in Japanese history. The Japanese army, which had about 100,000 men at the start of the attack, lost more than 53,000 men killed or missing in action and retreated back to the original starting point of the attack. There were many reasons for the Japanese defeat at Imphal, but one of the most important was the neglect of logistics. The Japanese army before the attack, one-sided emphasis on "on the food in the enemy" traditional supply ideas, the logistical support problem is not only poorly planned, and insufficient preparation. The 15th Army, which took up the task of attacking, completed only 18% of the original logistical support plan until it gave the order to the troops to start. When the troops attacked, they carried only 1-2 weeks of rations, 1.5-2 bases of ammunition, more than 20,000 horses, cows and elephants, and thousands of goats. They planned to use these animals to carry supplies and food, it is estimated that can support a month, as for the logistics of the subsequent supply, just wait for the "down Imphal, sit and eat Churchill". The British army summarized the battle after the war, wrote: "Due to the underestimation of the need for logistical supplies, due to the underestimation of the fighting quality of the British troops, which led to the destruction of the Japanese army." The Japanese army after the war to summarize the lessons of the failure of this battle also admitted that the lack of attention to logistics is an important reason for the disaster, they are in Imphal is to fight a "neglect of the logistics of the battle of the unintended".　　After the Battle of Imphal, as the main force of the Japanese army in Burma, the 15th Army, no longer has the combat power of a battle regiment. The Allied forces in India and Burma battlefield, from now on into the strategic phase of the general offensive. (Reproduced from the "Sina Military", slightly modified) The "Imphal" in the picture is Imphal.