The was an infantry division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the . The 33rd Division was raised in Utsunomiya, Tochigi prefecture, simultaneously with 32nd, 34th, 35th, 36th and 37th Divisions. Its headquarters were initially in Sendai. It was raised from conscripts largely from the northern Kantō prefectures of Tochigi, Ibaraki and Gunma. Action Initially the 33rd division was assigned to the 11th army in central China and sent to Hubei. It saw combat at the First Battle of Changsha from 14 September 1939. In April 1941, the 33rd division was transferred to Shanxi, and its reconnaissance regiment was disbanded. The 33rd division was transferred to the 15th army on 6 November 1941, and took part in the invasion of British Burma, under Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai. Initially 33rd division have landed in Bangkok in January 1942 and proceed inland. It lost a battalion at the Battle of Yenangyaung, but completed the conquest of Burma in May 1942 nonetheless. Later in December 1942, the 33rd division was instrumental to defeat an Allied forces in a Arakan Campaign 1942–43. Battle of Imphal As the Burma Railway was officially completed on 25 October 1943, the Japanese command in Burma had been reorganized. A new headquarters, Burma Area Army, was created under Lieutenant General Masakasu Kawabe. One of its subordinate formations, responsible for the central part of the front facing British India in Nagaland and Assam, was the 15th army, whose new commander was Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi. At the same time, Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai was promoted to command the 28th army in southern Burma. His command of the 33rd Division was succeeded by Lieutenant General Motoso Yanagida. Renya Mutaguchi’s plan was to have the 33rd Division destroy the Indian 17th Infantry Division at Tedim, then attack Imphal from the south - an action known as Operation U-Go. The 33rd Division Infantry Group HQ, under Major General Tsunoru Yamamoto, formed Yamamoto Force, composed of units of the Japanese 33rd and 15th Divisions which would destroy the Indian 20th Infantry Division at Tamu, then attack Imphal from the east. Meanwhile, the 15th Division under Lieutenant General Masafumi Yamauchi would envelop Imphal from the north, while in a separate subsidiary operation, the 31st Division under Lieutenant General Kotoku Sato would isolate Imphal by capturing nearby Kohima. All Renya Mutaguchi's divisional commanders disagreed with the plan to some extent, and Motoso Yanagida