1944 Chapin Map of Burma / Myanmar during World War II

Created during the beginning of the 1944 World War II Allied offensive to liberate Burma from the Japanese, this is a 1944 Robert M. Chapin, Jr. map of Burma. Two circular insets detail both battlefronts, commanded by American General Joseph Stilwell and British Admiral Louis Mountbatten. Red arrows highlight the Allied advance in both sectors. Stilwell's forces (depicted in the top inset) marched through northern Burma and reopened the critical Ledo Road, an overland supply route to Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist Chinese forces. Mountbatten's army (bottom circular inset) attacked Japanese forces farther south along the Indian Ocean.

The China Burma India Theater

The China Burma India Theater (CBI) was a second front for the Western Allies in the Pacific War. Burma, another British colony, was caught between British India and Japanese allied Thailand to the east. The Americans recognized India as a base of operations to resupply Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese nationalists in China. Kai-shek's fight against the Japanese bogged down hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops, making them unavailable to fight against the Americans elsewhere in the Pacific. In Spring 1942, the Japanese launched an offensive aimed at conquering Burma and closing overland supply routes. This campaign proved successful, and the Japanese pushed the Allies out of Burma and back to India.

The Burma Campaign of 1944 – 1945

The defeats of 1942, and subsequent losses in 1943, forced the Allies to reevaluate their plan going forward. In August 1943, a commando unit led by Major General Frank Merrill, 'Merrill's Marauders,' infiltrated Burma, where they utilized guerrilla tactics to harass the Japanese behind the lines. In February 1944, the Marauders attacked the Japanese 18th Division, allowing other elements of the American army under General Stilwell to gain a foothold in Burma. Following the Japanese defeats at Imphal and Kohima later in 1944, which stalled the Japanese invasion of India, the Allies began moving south in pursuit of the retreating Japanese. The Allies won victories at Meiktila and Mandalay before advancing on to Rangoon (Yangon), which was liberated in May.

Publication History and Census

This map is a separately-issued large-format edition of a map drawn by Robert M. Chapin, Jr. for publication in the March 20, 1944 issue of TIME Magazine. Two examples are cataloged in OCLC and are part of the collections at Franklin and Marshall College and Wichita State University. A collection stamp from the Ashtabula Public Library in Ohio appears on the verso. We have contacted the library and confirmed that it was legally deaccessioned in the 1990s.