State of Burma
The State of Burma (Burmese: ဗမာနိုင်ငံတော်, MLCTS: ba.ma nuingngamtau; Japanese: ビルマ國, Biruma-koku) was a Japanese puppet state established in 1943 during the Japanese occupation of Burma in World War II. == Background == During the early stages of World War II, the Empire of Japan invaded British Burma primarily to obtain raw materials (which included oil from fields around Yenangyaung, minerals and large surpluses of rice), and to close off the Burma Road, which was a primary link for aid and munitions to the Chinese Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek which had been fighting the Japanese for several years in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese Fifteenth Army under Lieutenant General Shojiro Iida quickly overran Burma from January – May 1942.