ABSTRACT
The Japanese occupied British-ruled Burma over the course of a six-month period, from the outbreak of hostilities on 7 December 1941 until May 1942, when the British were pushed back into India. For the next three and a half years, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA)’s Fifteenth Army, which was assigned charge of Burma, would exercise effective control over the country, although local collaborating bodies were created to mediate the IJA’s relationship with the Burmese population. The collaborating bodies included the Provisional Administrative Committee (June to July 1942), the Burmese Executive Administration (BEA) also known as the Central Administrative Government (1 August 1942 to July 1943), and the nominally independent Government of Burma (1 August 1943 to May 1945), all headed by Ba Maw.1
