Yasuhisa Kawamura, deputy chief of mission of the Japanese embassy (left) looks at the photographs taken during the Imphal conflict at the Indian National Army (INA) War Museum in Mairong, some 45km from Imphal yesterday. Veterans and dignitaries commemorated the 70th anniversary of one of the fiercest but largely unknown battles of World War II which pitted British-led forces against Japanese troops in northeast India. A quiet pocket of British India until then, the remote state of Manipur was the scene of devastating fighting from March to July 1944 when the Japanese advanced westwards from captured Burma, backed by a rebel Indian force. Tens of thousands of soldiers were killed fighting for the cities of Imphal and Kohima, with the Allied victory a major turning point in the Asia campaign that was voted as Britain’s greatest battle by the National Army Museum of London in April 2013.