A divided front
When Japanese forces swept into Burma in early 1942, British administration in Arakan collapsed. Many Rakhine Buddhists aligned with the Japanese-backed Burma Independence Army; most Rohingya communities sided with the British, who recruited Muslim irregulars into a loose force often called the "V Force" to gather intelligence and harass Japanese positions.
The 1942 massacres
In the chaos following the British retreat, communal violence erupted across northern Arakan. Both Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist villages suffered massacres and forced displacement. Tens of thousands of Rohingya were killed or driven north towards Maungdaw and across the Naf river into Bengal. The massacres also pushed Buddhist Rakhine populations southward.
A long shadow
By the war's end, Arakan's demographic map had shifted: a more Muslim-majority north and a more Rakhine Buddhist majority in central and southern districts. The mutual trauma of 1942 hardened communal narratives that would later be revived to justify further violence. Rohingya hopes that wartime loyalty to the British would translate into postwar political guarantees were largely disappointed.