State of Burma

The State of Burma was a Japanese puppet state established in 1943 during the Japanese occupation of Burma in the Second World War. Japan had invaded British Burma in 1942 to secure oil, minerals and rice and to cut the Burma Road that supplied Chiang Kai-shek's forces, and its Fifteenth Army overran the country between January and May of that year. At first the occupiers governed through a military administration while sponsoring the Burma Independence Army, but Tokyo long withheld any promise of independence. On 1 August 1943 Burma was declared an independent state under Ba Maw, a former colonial politician, with its capital at Rangoon. The new government adopted a constitution, raised its own army and declared war on Britain and the United States, but real authority remained with the Japanese garrison and the country's resources were harnessed to the Japanese war effort. As the Allied reconquest advanced in 1944 and 1945 the regime lost control of the countryside, and the Burma National Army turned against Japan in March 1945. The state collapsed with the Japanese surrender, and Burma returned to British rule before gaining full independence in 1948.