Air strike

Air Operations at Imphal
By mid-1944, the Allied air forces enjoyed undisputed air supremacy over Burma. The last major effort by the Japanese Army Air Force had been over the Arakan in February and March, when they had suffered severe losses. During the Imphal and Kohima battles, they were able to make barely half a dozen significant raids.
IV Corps enjoyed close air support from fighter-bombers and dive bombers. Allied fighter bombers and medium bombers shot up and bombed enemy concentrations, supply dumps, transport, roads and bridges all the way to the Chindwin river. The monsoon in no way diminished their activity. The Third Tactical Air Force (TAF) increased their sortie rate to 24,000 sorties during the worst four months of the monsoon, nearly six times the figure of the previous year’s record.
However, the most important contribution to the Allied victory was made by both British and American transport aircraft. The Allies could fly men, equipment and supplies into the airstrips at Imphal (and Palel also, until the onset of the monsoon rains) so although cut off by land, the town was not without a lifeline. Allied aircraft could also parachute ammunition, rations and even drinking water to surrounded units.
Several thousand mules, many shipped from the Argentine, were used to carry food ammunition, and light guns to outlying outposts, for example 17th Indian Division up the Bishenpur trail. During the siege animal fodder also had to be flown in.
At the start of the battle, South East Asia Command had 76 transport aircraft (mainly C-47 Skytrain) available, but many others were dedicated to supplying the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-Shek, or to establishing USAAF bomber bases in China, via "the hump". Not even Lord Mountbatten, the Commander-in-Chief, had the authority to commandeer any of these aircraft, but at the crisis of the battle in the middle of March he nevertheless did so, acquiring 20 C-46 Commando. He was supported by American officers at SEAC and the American China-Burma-India Theater headquarters.[9]
By the end of the battle the Allied air forces had flown 19,000 tons of supplies and 12,000 men into Kohima and Imphal, and flown out 13,000 casualties and 43,000 non-combatants.
War Cemetry
After the war, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission set up cemetries in Imphal and Kohima to commemorate the memories of the British and the Indian soldiers who died during the Second World War.[10]
Stalemate
From the beginning of April, the Japanese attacked the Imphal plain from several directions:
• 33rd Division attacked from the south at Bishenpur, where they cut a secondary track from Silchar into the plain. Yanagida, its commander, was already pessimistic and depressed by the failure to trap the Indian 17th Division. He had also been rattled by a garbled radio message which suggested that one of his regiments had been destroyed at Milestone 109. He therefore advanced cautiously. By doing so, he may have lost a chance to gain success while the Indian 17th Infantry Division was resting after its retreat and Bishenpur was held only by Indian 32 Brigade (from 20th Division). Mutaguchi removed him from command.