Renya Mutaguchi

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Japanese General:

Mutaguchi Renya, Lieutenant-General (1888-1966) 1933 - 1936 Chief of General Affairs Section, General Affairs Bureau, General Staff 1936 Commanding Officer Peking Garrison Infantry Unit, China 1936 - 1938 Commanding Officer 1st Regiment, China 1938 - 1939 Chief of Staff 4th Army 1939 - 1941 Commandant of the Military Preparation School 1941 - 1943 General Officer Commanding 18th Division, China-Malaya-Philippines-Burma 1943 - 1944 General Officer Commanding 15th Army, Burma 1944 Retired

Recalled 1945 Commandant of the Military Preparation School

[edit] Battle of the Imphal

By design or chance, Mutaguchi had played a major part in several Japanese victories, ever since the Marco Polo Bridge incident. His natural instinct was to mount an offensive against Imphal. He may also have been goaded by the first Chindit expedition launched by the British under Orde Wingate early in 1943. Wingate's troops had traversed with apparently insolent ease, terrain which Mutaguchi had earlier claimed would be impassable to the Japanese 18th Division which he commanded at the time.

A spoiling attack to disrupt Allied plans was standard Japanese practice. Mutaguchi had larger ambitions. He planned to exploit the capture of Imphal by advancing to the Brahmaputra River valley, thereby cutting the Allied supply lines to their front in northern Burma, and to the airfields supplying the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek over "The Hump".

Mutaguchi's plan was at first rejected by the staff at Burma Area Army. However, the headquarters for all the Japanese forces in South East Asia, Southern Expeditionary Army were in favour of it. Kawabe's staff persuaded Southern Expeditionary Army that there were severe logistical risks with Mutaguchi's plan, only to find that the Japanese Imperial Army HQ in Tokyo now supported it. To some extent, Mutaguchi and War Minister Hideki Tojo were persuaded by Subash Chandra Bose, who led the Indian National Army, a force of former Indian prisoners of war now fighting under the Japanese, that a victory such as Mutaguchi anticipated would lead to the collapse of British rule in India.

In the end, the various intermediate headquarters allowed the plan (now given the name U-GO) to proceed, because mere passive defence of Burma would require as many reinforcements as the attack on Imphal. Also, if U-GO were successful, almost all the Allied attacks on Burma would have to be abandoned. (quoted from wikipedia resources on the Japanese General..)