The battles of Kohima and Imphal became two of the greatest struggles of the Second World War, rivalling El Alamein and Stalingrad, though it still remains comparatively unknown. To the men who fought there however, it remains “The Battle”. If the Japanese had won, the road to India would have lain wide open before them.
The Battles of Kohima and Imphal became the turning points in the Japanese attempt to invade India and were fought in the Assam region on the Indo-Burmese border between 8th March and 3rd July 1944.
The Japanese offensive, codenamed U-Go, was launched on the 6th March 1944 with three aims; to disrupt the planned allied offensive to retake Burma and to open the way for their invasion of India. Their third objective was to cut the supply line to the American General Stilwell’s Northern Area Combat Command fighting in China and northern Burma in support of the Chinese Commander Chiang Kai Shek, thus freeing up the huge number of Japanese troops committed there to fight elsewhere. The gateway to India centred on two isolated towns on the North East border of India, Imphal in the district of Manipur and Kohima, a hill town some 130 miles to the north and sited on the summit of the pass leading to India.
Imphal was an important logistical supply base for British forces and was defended by IV Corps of the British 14th Army, commanded by General Scoones, under the overall commander General William Slim.
Beyond Kohima was the railhead of Dimapur, the major British supply depot and its capture would be vital to the Japanese supply line if India was to be taken. Slim’s plan was to withdraw his troops from their jungle outposts, bringing them closer to Imphal where the flat plain would enable his superior air and artillery forces to destroy the Japanese.
Two divisions of the Japanese 15th Army, under the command of the hot-headed General Mutaguchi, crossed the Chindwin River on the 15th March and advanced on Imphal. Mutagachi, with an over inflated sense of his own abilities and believing that he was destined to conquer India, calculated that a major advance north across the Chindwin River would destroy the British and Indian forces guarding the gateway to the sub-continent. He also sent a third force, the 31st Infantry Division led by Lieutenant-General Sato, to mount a simultaneous attack on the border town of Kohima.
The left wing of the attackers, led by General Myazaki, first clashed with allied troops of the 50th Indian Parachute Brigade covering the approaches to Imphal at Sangshak. The battle raged for the next six days with the Paras putting up fierce resistance until, out of water and ammunition, they withdrew with losses of some 600 men against the Japanese 400.
The Japanese plan was to surround Imphal and launch a major attack from the south assisted by elements of the Azad Hind, an Indian resistance group dedicated to overthrow British rule in India. These rebels were used as guides and also to infiltrate British lines and encourage troops of the British Indian Army to desert.
Speed was essential for the success of the Japanese attack. Their forces had supplies enough for about a month of fighting but were at the end of a very long supply line. Furthermore, the monsoon rains would start in May and make movement even more difficult. Mutagachi’s forces took 5,000 oxen with them for food, but many died through lack of forage or were stolen by locals hostile to the invaders. He relied on a quick outcome and hoped to supply his forces with food and ammunition from British stores after the battle. This gamble had worked in the past, but now, being far from their own supply base and with total British air superiority in the region; his Divisional Commanders were less than happy with the plan. Mutagachi had also assumed that the British would be unable to deploy their tanks in the steeply wooded hills around Imphal and had left behind most of his field artillery, their chief anti-tank weapon, bringing with him just a few light tanks.
On the 20th March, the 20th Indian Division, under Major General Gracey, was holding the outpost positions at Tamu and Moreh when the Japanese attacked. Gracey’s force included six M3 Lee tanks of the 3rd Carabiniers and after a short fierce fight; six Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks were destroyed.
Gracey was happy to stay in position and slug it out, but when he was ordered to detach some of his force to provide a reserve for IV Corps, leaving him too weak to hold the line, was forced to withdraw. The supply dump at Moreh was set ablaze and 200 cattle slaughtered before he left.
Further south, the 17th Indian Division was cut off by the advancing Japanese and the road to Imphal cut. A counter attack by the Indians drove the enemy from the road, but further north the Japanese captured the supply dump at Milestone 109. Another attack by the 48th Indian Infantry Brigade drove them out and the Indians then withdrew, taking the supplies from Milestone 109 with them.
Both the Japanese and Indian divisions had suffered heavy casualties and Scoones had been forced to commit his only reserves, the 23rd Indian Infantry Division, to aid the 17th. These divisions, supplied by parachute drops, got back to Imphal on April the 4th.
On the 28th of March, the Japanese 60th Regiment cut the road north of Imphal, while the 51st Regiment advanced on Imphal from the north east. It was now that Slim’s air superiority came to the rescue. He was able to transport the experienced 15th Indian Infantry Division and all it’s equipment, (Jeeps, mules etc) to the Imphal plain in readiness for the Japanese onslaught.
The Japanese 33rd Division, under General Yanagita, attacked from the south, cutting a path through the jungle to Imphal from Bishenpur. They captured Tongzang and cut off supply lines to the Indian infantry’s 17th Division withdrawing towards Imphal. The British General Scoones sent his only reserve, the 23rd Indian Infantry Division to the aid of the 17th and with the help of the RAF supplying them by air, were able to make their way back to the Imphal plain. A garbled radio message to Yanagita suggested, (incorrectly) that part of his force had been destroyed at Tongzang and this, coupled with a lack of supplies, caused him to halt his advance just 10 miles from Imphal. Other Japanese units advancing directly up the Tiddim-Imphal road, suffered severely from British artillery fire.
Further attacks were launched on the Tamu-Imphal road, the only metalled road the Japanese could use and was vital to them for bringing up their light tanks and artillery for the assault on Imphal itself. Also on this road was Patel airfield, one of only two all weather airfields on the Imphal plain, vital to the defenders for resupply. A Regiment of the Azad Hind was sent across country by the Japanese to infiltrate Patel airfield and attempt to persuade its Indian defenders to defect, but when this failed, the Hind launched an all out attack on the field but were driven off with over 250 killed and many more wounded.
A new attack on the road was mounted by the Japanese on April 4th, but due to poor communications, the infantry were not ready and twelve Japanese light tanks found themselves exposed to British anti-tank guns and were destroyed. Heavy fighting developed on the hills straddling the Tamu-Imphal road with the Japanese capturing many of them, but was driven back by British and Indian counter-attacks, both sides suffering heavy losses.
The Japanese 15th Division then encircled Imphal from the north and captured a British supply dump at Kanglatongbi, only to find that it had been emptied of food and ammunition. The 51st Regiment seized the Nunshigum Ridge overlooking the main airstrip at Imphal. This was a major threat to IV Corps and a counter-attack was immediately launched, supported by air strikes, massed artillery and the M3 Lee tanks of the Carabiniers. The Japanese were driven off but with great losses on both sides. It was reported that every officer of the Carabiniers and the attacking Indian infantry was killed or wounded during the fight.
Imphal was now surrounded but by the 1st of May, the Japanese advance, short of food and ammunition, had come to a halt. Scoones then mounted a counter-attack on the Japanese 15th Division, reckoned to be the weaker of the encircling forces. If successful, the siege could be broken and help sent north to the beleaguered hill town of Kohima. A fresh Indian division was flown in and ordered to retake Mapeo Spur, a steep ridge overlooking Imphal, but found the Japanese defences almost impregnable, being dug in on the reverse slope of the ridge where the artillery could not reach. This meant an infantry assault with rifle and bayonet, only to be driven back by mortar fire and grenades time and time again.
By now however, the Japanese were at the end of their endurance and British and Indian troops of the 5th Division began moving north up the main road through Kanklatongi while the 20th Division followed the Iril River towards Litan, threatening the lines of communication of the Japanese attacking Kohima.
At Kohima, the British had been ordered by Slim, knowing how vital the hill town was as the last defence before India, not to withdraw without his permission, a virtual “fight to the last man” instruction. It was imperative to deny the Japanese the mountain roads leading down to the Indian plain. The commander at Kohima was Colonel Hugh Richards who had about 2,500 troops under his command, half of which were support troops. Heading towards him was 12,000 battle hardened Japanese. In late March, the 161st Indian Brigade was sent to Kohima, but General Slim, fearing that the Japanese would send only a small force to take Kohima and make their main thrust directly at Dimapur, recalled them back to the supply base. Last minute re-enforcements of two battalions of infantry supported by artillery were rushed in and were positioned two miles west of Kohima on the highest hill on the ridge, later to become known as Garrison Hill.
Fighting began on the 30th of March as the Japanese came into contact with units of the Assam Rifles which were defending the approaches to Kohima and pushed them back. By the 5th of April, despite desperate resistance, the Japanese had taken the strongpoints on the hills around the town and their 31st Division began probing attacks from the south.
The 161st Indian Brigade was again ordered to Kohima, but only one battalion (4th Btn Royal West Kent’s) arrived before the Japanese cut the road west of the ridge.
The siege began in earnest on the 6th of April, the garrison coming under constant bombardment from shells and mortars, in many instances by the Japanese using weapons and ammunition taken from captured supply bases. The defenders were slowly driven back to a small perimeter on Garrison Hill receiving some artillery support from units of the 161st Division, themselves cut off two miles away at Jotsuma. The British and Indian troops crouched in foxholes sometimes only yards from the enemy and constantly harassed by mortar and sniper fire making it virtually impossible to move in daylight. To make matters worse they were short of water, their canvas water tanks having been riddled with bullets. A small spring was discovered on the north side of the hill, but could only be reached at night. The medical dressing centres were exposed to enemy fire and wounded men were hit again as they waited for treatment.
The Japanese, short of food and ammunition, knew that they must finish the job quickly and threw everything they had at the weary defenders, shelling and sniping, plus infantry attacks throughout the day and infiltrating at night to silence individual foxholes. Day and night the defending troops were subjected to Japanese broadcasts urging them to surrender.
On April 11th, troops of the 5th Infantry Brigade were sent southward from Dimapur towards Kohima and after two days heavy fighting through Japanese road blocks had smashed their way to Jotsuma just two miles away.
The situation at Kohima was now desperate and Colonel Richards sent a message to 5th Brigade stating that unless help arrived in 48 hours, Kohima would fall. He added that,” The men’s spirits are all right but there aren’t many of us left”.
Some of the heaviest fighting took place at the north end of the ridge around the Deputy Commissioner’s bungalow and tennis court in what became known as The Battle of the Tennis Court. The court became a no man’s land with attackers and defenders dug in on either side of the court so close to each other that grenades were thrown between the trenches.
The Japanese launched their fiercest attack on the night of the 17th, bombarding the garrison with phosphorous shells and following up with howling infantry assaults with grenades and machine guns. Despite fierce resistance the attackers captured the bungalow, effectively cutting the garrison in two. By that night the defenders were on their last legs with the Japanese swarming everywhere but still failing to mount co-ordinated attacks which would have overwhelmed the defenders. The ground, just 350 square yards around Garrison Hill, was all that remained of the perimeter held on April 5th. But the West Kent’s hung on till the dawn of the 20th when the advance guard of the Royal Berkshires of the 2nd Division broke through and relieved them. Men of the Berkshires later recounted that the stench of rotting corpses made them physically sick as they dug in on the rubble and shell scarred hill resembling a First World War battlefield.
Under cover of darkness, the British wounded were brought out under fire but their evacuation did not signal the end of the battle. The Japanese still held most of Kohima Ridge including the bungalow and tennis court. They had dug in extensively and created a warren of dug outs and bunkers and would have to be driven out amid the monsoon downpours that brought with it the mud, malaria and dysentery.
Two British Brigades of the 2nd Division were sent off to outflank the Japanese positions. One Brigade attacked the Japanese holding the nearby Naga Village while the other reached Kohima Ridge from the South West and attacked in the driving rain, surprising the enemy and capturing part of the ridge but not being able to secure the entire area. The attacks continued for a week with vicious hand to hand fighting in the mud and rain and much of the ridge was retaken by the 33rd Indian Infantry Brigade after a barrage of smoke shells blinded the enemy machine gunners, enabling the attackers to dig in and secure the captured ground.
The task of clearing the last of the enemy from their remaining positions around the Deputy Commissioner’s bungalow and tennis court was given to the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Dorsets, but the difficult terrain and the Japanese defences made this impossible. A detachment of Royal Engineers who, using bulldozers, cut a path through the thick jungle on the slope behind the bungalow and winched a Grant tank up and rolled it down. It came to rest on the baseline of the tennis court and its commander, Sergeant Waterhouse of the 149th Royal Tank Regiment, crushed trenches and poured a hail of fire at the bunkers from less than 20 yards away. This finally broke the Japanese resolve and they were driven on to the guns of the waiting Dorsets. The ridge and its buildings had been reduced to a rat infested shell churned wilderness with half buried human remains everywhere.
On the 5th of May, General Sato signalled Mutagachi that, unless he received supplies by the 1st of June, he would have to withdraw. Mutagachi ordered him to stand, but on the 31st of May, Sato told his troops to withdraw southwards and was harried all the way by the British. Imphal was relieved on the 22nd of June after a siege lasting eighty days. The fighting had cost the British forces some 17,500 killed and wounded and the Japanese 80, 000.
The 14th Army of Brits, Australians, Sikhs, Jats, Burmese and Gurkhas, sometimes in the most appalling of conditions, chased the Japanese southwards towards Meiktila and Rangoon, inflicting terrible losses on them and, in the words of General Slim, “Fought them to a standstill”. In the three years of fighting in Burma, the Japanese suffered losses of some 200,000 against allied losses of 77,000.
The simple epitaph to the fallen at Kohima says it all.
When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.
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