During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Operation Capital, Operation ''Y'', was a broad British offensive launched on 19 November 1944 from

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

, India across the

Chindwin River , , image = Homalin aerial.jpg , image_size = , image_caption = The Chindwin at Homalin. The smaller, meandering Uyu River can be seen joining the Chindwin. , map = Irrawaddyrivermap.jpg , map_size = , map_alt = , map_caption ...

into northeast

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

near

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

. The objectives were to clear Japanese forces from northern Burma, reopen the

Burma Road The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. It was built while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second Sino-J ...

supply route to China and tie down Japanese forces to prevent their transfer to the Pacific theatre. The

British Fourteenth Army The British Fourteenth Army was a multi-national force comprising units from Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries during the World War II, Second World War. As well as British Army units, many of its units were from the British Indian ...

struck the

Japanese Fifteenth Army The was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It was involved in the invasion of Burma in December 1941 and served in that country for most of its war service. History The Japanese 15th Army was formed on November 9, 1941 ...

near

Imphal Imphal ( Meitei pronunciation: /im.pʰal/; English pronunciation: ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Manipur. The metropolitan centre of the city contains the ruins of Kangla Palace (also known as Kangla Fort), the royal seat of the fo ...

and

Kohima Kohima (; Angami Naga: ''Kewhira'' ()), is the capital of the Northeastern Indian state of Nagaland. With a resident population of almost 100,000, it is the second largest city in the state. Originally known as ''Kewhira'', Kohima was founded ...

. The Japanese were forced to pull back to a line from

Indaw Indaw ( shn, ဝဵင်းဢၢင်းတေႃႇ)is a town in northern Burma, in Sagaing Division, Katha District, Indaw Township. It is located about 2 km south-east of Indaw Lake. The rail junction at Naba is located about 6 km ...

to Mandalay, vacating most of Burma. During planning, the operation was renamed ''Extended Capital'' to include a pursuit of the enemy to

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

. See

Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay The concurrent Battle of Meiktila and Battle of Mandalay were decisive engagements near the end of the Burma campaign during World War II. Collectively, they are sometimes referred to as the Battle of Central Burma. Despite logistical difficulti ...

for a fuller description of this operation and its context.

Further reading