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Battle of Kohima
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The Battle of Kohima (the "Stalingrad of the East") was the turning point of the Japanese U Go offensive into India in 1944 in World War II. It was fought from April 4 to June 22 1944 around the town of Kohima in northeast India.
The battle took place in two stages. From April 3 to April 16, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the major British and Indian troops at Imphal were supplied.
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The Battle of Kohima (the "Stalingrad of the East") was the turning point of the Japanese U Go offensive into India in 1944 in World War II. It was fought from April 4 to June 22 1944 around the town of Kohima in northeast India.
The battle took place in two stages. From April 3 to April 16, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the major British and Indian troops at Imphal were supplied. By mid-April, the small British force at Kohima was relieved, and from April 18 to June 22, British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The battle ended on June 22 when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, ending the siege of Imphal.
Background
The Japanese plan to invade India, codenamed U-GO, was originally intended as a spoiling attack against the Indian IV Corps at Imphal, to disrupt the Allied offensive plans for that year. The commander of the Japanese Fifteenth Army, Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, enlarged the plan to invade India itself and perhaps even overthrow the British Raj. The objections of various superior HQ were eventually overruled by War Minister Hideki Tojo.
Part of the plan involved sending the Japanese 31st Division (which was composed of 58 Regiment, 124 Regiment, 138 Regiment and 31 Mountain Artillery Regiment) to capture Kohima and thus cut off Imphal, and then exploit to Dimapur. The division's commander, Lieutenant General Kotoku Sato was unhappy with his role. He had not been involved in the planning of the offensive, and had grave misgivings about their chances. He had already told his staff that they might all starve to death.
In common with many senior Japanese officers, Sato considered Mutaguchi a "blockhead". He and Mutaguchi had also been on opposite sides during the split between the Toseiha and Kodoha factions within the Japanese Army during the early 1930s, and Sato believed he had reason to distrust Mutaguchi's motives.
Preliminary moves
Starting on 15 March, 1944, the Japanese 31st Division crossed the Chindwin River near Homalin and moved northwest along jungle trails on a front almost wide. Although the march was arduous, good progress was made. The left wing of the division, 58 Regiment, commanded by the division's Infantry Group commander, Major General Shigesaburo Miyazaki, was ahead of the neighbouring formation (Japanese 15th Infantry Division) when they clashed with Indian troops covering the northern approaches to Imphal on 20 March.
The Indian troops were the Indian 50 Parachute Brigade under Brigadier Maxwell Hope-Thompson, at Sangshak. Although they were not Miyazaki's objective, he decided to clear them from his line of advance. The Battle of Sangshak continued for six days. The Parachute brigade's troops were desperately short of drinking water, but Miyazaki was handicapped by lack of artillery until near the end of the battle. Eventually, as the Japanese 15th Division's troops joined the battle, Hope-Thompson withdrew. 50 Parachute Brigade lost 600 men, Miyazaki over 400. Miyazaki also captured some of the food and munitions dropped by the RAF to the defenders of Sangshak. However, his troops, who had the shortest and easiest route to Kohima, were delayed by a week.
Meanwhile, the commander of the British Fourteenth Army, Lieutenant General William Slim, had belatedly realised the strength of the force moving on Kohima. (It had originally been thought that the Japanese would move only a regiment across the forbidding terrain.) There were few fighting troops (as opposed to soldiers in line-of-communication units and supporting services) in Kohima. There were none at all at the vital base of Dimapur to the north, which contained an area of supply dumps miles long and wide.
As part of the hasty reinforcement of the Imphal front, the Indian 5th Infantry Division were flown from the Arakan front, where they had just participated in the defeat of a subsidiary Japanese offensive at the Battle of the Admin Box. While the main body of the division went to Imphal, Indian 161 Infantry Brigade (with 24 Mountain Artillery Regiment, Indian Artillery), were flown to Dimapur.
As the fall of Dimapur would have been disastrous, Slim asked his superior, General George Giffard (commanding Eleventh Army Group), for more troops to protect this base and to prepare to relieve Imphal. Early in March, the 23 Long Range Penetration Brigade was removed from Major General Orde Wingate's Chindit force, and dispatched by rail to Jorhat north of Dimapur, where they could threaten the flank of any Japanese attack on the base. Giffard, and General Claude Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army, also prepared to send the British 2nd Division and Indian XXXIII Corps HQ under Lieutenant General Montagu Stopford by road and rail to Dimapur from reserve in southern and central India.
Until XXXIII Corps headquarters could arrive at Dimpapur, the HQ of 202 Line of Communication Area under Major General R.P.L. Ranking took command of the area.
Geography of the Kohima Area
Kohima's strategic importance in the context of the wider Japanese Chindwin offensive of 1944 lay in that it was the summit of a pass that offered the Japanese the best route from Burma into India. Additionally, it controlled the road which was the main supply route between the railhead and logistic base at Dimapur in the Brahmaputra River valley, and Imphal, where three divisions of British and Indian troops faced the main Japanese offensive.
Kohima ridge runs roughly north and south. The road from Dimapur to Imphal climbs to its northern end and runs along its eastern face. North of the ridge lay the densely inhabited area of Naga Village, crowned by Treasury Hill and Church Knoll. (Baptist and other Christian missionaries had been active in Nagaland over the preceding half century). South and west of Kohima Ridge were GPT Ridge and the jungle-covered Aradura Spur.
In 1944, Kohima was the administrative centre of Nagaland. The Deputy Commissioner was Charles Pawsey. His bungalow stood on the hillside at a bend in the road, with its gardens and tennis court on terraces above. The various British and Indian service troop encampments in the area gave their names to the features which were to be important in the battle e.g. "Field Supply Depot" became FSD Hill or merely FSD. The Japanese later assigned their own codenames to the features; for example, Garrison Hill was known as Inu (dog) and Kuki Piquet as Saru (monkey). These were frequently-used names, and not generally as memorable as the British names which are used in most histories.
Siege
Before Indian 161 Brigade arrived, the only fighting troops in the area were the newly raised Assam Regiment and a few platoons from the 3 (Naga Hills) Battalion of the paramilitary Assam Rifles. Late in March, 161 Brigade deployed in Kohima, but were then ordered back to Dimapur. The Assam Regiment fought delaying actions against the main body of the Japanese 31st Division at Jessami, to the east of Kohima from 1 April, while Miyazaki's troops from the south were probing Kohima on 3 April.
Indian 161 Brigade had been ordered forward again, but only one battalion, 4th Bn. The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment (now part of the Queen's Regiment), arrived in Kohima before the Japanese cut the road west of the ridge. Besides this battalion, the garrison consisted of a raw battalion (the Shere Regiment) from the Royal Nepalese Army, some companies from the Burma Regiment, some of the Assam Regiment which had retired to Kohima and various detachments of convalescents and line-of-communication troops. The garrison numbered about 2,500 and was commanded by Colonel Hugh Richards, who had served formerly with the Chindits.
The siege began on 6 April. The garrison was continually shelled and mortared, in many instances by Japanese using weapons and ammunition captured at Sangshak and from other depots, and was slowly driven into a small perimeter on Garrison Hill. They had artillery support from the main body of 161 Brigade, themselves cut off away at Jotsoma, but as at Sangshak, they were very short of drinking water. (The water supply point was on GPT Ridge, which was captured on the first day of the siege. A small spring was discovered on the north side of Garrison Hill, but it could be reached only at night.) The medical dressing stations were exposed to Japanese fire, and wounded men were hit again as they waited for treatment.
Some of the heaviest fighting took place at the north end of Kohima Ridge around the Deputy Commissioner's bungalow and tennis court, in what became known as the Battle of the Tennis Court. The tennis court became a no man's land, with the Japanese and the defenders of Kohima dug in on opposite sides, so close to each other that grenades were thrown between the trenches.
On the night of 17/18 April, the Japanese finally captured the DC's bungalow area. Other Japanese captured Kuki Picquet, cutting the garrison in two. The defenders' situation was desperate, but the Japanese did not follow up by attacking Garrison Hill, and when day broke, troops of 161 Indian Brigade arrived to relieve the garrison.
Relief
The British 2nd Division had begun to arrive at Dimapur in early April. By 11 April, Fourteenth Army had about the same number of troops in the area as the Japanese. The British 5th Brigade of the 2nd Division broke through Japanese roadblocks to relieve 161 Brigade in Jotsoma on 15 April. The British 6th Brigade took over 161 Brigade's defensive position (the "Jotsoma Box"), allowing 161 Brigade with air, artillery and armour support to launch an attack towards Kohima on 18 April.
After a day's heavy fighting, the leading troops of 161 Brigade (1st Bn. 1st Punjab Regiment) broke through and started to relieve the Kohima garrison. By now, Kohima resembled a battlefield from the First World War, with trees smashed, buildings ruined and the ground covered in craters.
Under cover of darkness the wounded (numbering 300) were bought out under fire. Although contact had been established it took a further 24 hours to fully secure the road between Jotsoma and Kohima. During 19 April and into the early hours of 20 April, the British 6th Brigade steadily replaced the original garrison and at 06:00 hours on 20 April, the garrison commander (Colonel Richards) handed over command of the area.
Miyazaki continued to try to capture Garrison Hill, and there was heavy fighting for this position for several more nights, with high casualties on both sides. The Japanese positions on Kuki Picquet were only from Garrison Hill, and fighting was often hand-to-hand. On the night of 26/27 April, a British attack recaptured the clubhouse above the Deputy Commissioner's bungalow, which overlooked most of the Japanese centre.
Counter-offensive
Meanwhile, the other two brigades of 2nd Division tried to outflank both ends of the Japanese position, in Naga Village to the north and on GPT Ridge to the south. The monsoon had by now broken, and the steep slopes were covered in mud, making movement and supply very difficult. After promising starts, both moves failed because of the terrain and the weather, and from 4 May, the division concentrated on the Japanese centre along Kohima Ridge. The Japanese had reorganised their forces for defence. Their Left Force under Miyazaki held Kohima Ridge with four battalions; the divisional HQ under Sato himself and the Centre Force under Colonel Shiraishi held Naga Village with another four battalions. The much smaller Right Force held villages to the north and east.
To support their attack on the ridge, the British had now amassed thirty-eight 3.7 Inch Mountain Howitzers, forty-eight 25-pounder field guns and two 5.5 inch medium guns. The RAF also bombed and strafed the Japanese positions. The Japanese could oppose them with only seventeen light mountain guns, with very little ammunition.
Nevertheless, progress was slow. Tanks could not be used, and the Japanese were very deeply dug in. Their positions were well-concealed and mutually supporting. Japanese posts on the reverse slope of GPT Ridge repeatedly caught British troops attacking Jail Hill in the flank, inflicting heavy casualties, and prevented them capturing the hill for a week. Two successive commanders of British 4th Infantry Brigade were killed in the close-range fighting on GPT. However, the various positions were slowly taken. Jail Hill, together with Kuki Picquet, FSD and DIS, were finally captured by Indian 33rd Brigade on 11 May after a barrage of smoke shells blinded the Japanese machine-gunners and allowed Punjabi troops to secure the hill and dig in.
The last Japanese positions on the ridge to be captured were the tennis court and gardens above the Deputy Commissioner's bungalow. On 13 May, the British finally bulldozed a track to the summit overlooking the position, up which a tank could be dragged. A Lee tank crashed down onto the tennis court and destroyed the Japanese trenches and bunkers there. The 2nd Bn. the Dorsetshire Regiment followed up and captured the hillside where the bungalow formerly stood, thus finally clearing Kohima Ridge.
The terrain had been reduced to a fly- and rat-infested wilderness, with half-buried human remains everywhere. The conditions under which the Japanese troops had lived and fought were described by several British sources as "unspeakable".
Yet more Allied reinforcements had arrived. 33 Brigade (part of Indian 7th Division) had been fighting since 4 May. Indian 114 Brigade and the Division HQ joined the fighting on 12 May, and (with 161 Brigade under command) concentrated on capturing Naga Village from the north. 268 Indian Motor Brigade was used to relieve the brigades of British 2nd Division and allow them to rest, before they resumed their drive southward along the Imphal Road.
Yet when the Allies launched another attack on 16 May, the Japanese continued to defend Naga Village and Aradura Spur tenaciously.
Japanese retreat
The decisive factor was the Japanese lack of supplies. The Japanese 31st Division had begun the operation with only three weeks' supply of food. Once these supplies were exhausted, they had had to make do with meagre captured stocks and what they could forage in increasingly hostile local villages. This was partly due to the British 23 LRP Brigade, which had been operating behind the Japanese division. They had cut the Japanese supply lines and prevented them foraging in the Naga Hills to the east of Kohima. The Japanese had mounted two resupply missions, using captured jeeps to carry supplies forward from the Chindwin, but they brought mainly artillery and anti-tank ammunition rather than food.
By the middle of May, Sato's troops were starving. He considered that Mutaguchi and the HQ of Japanese Fifteenth Army were taking little notice of his situation, as they had issued several confusing and contradictory orders to him during April. Because the main attack on Imphal faltered around the middle of April, Mutaguchi wished 31st Division or parts of it to join in the attack on Imphal from the north, even while the division was struggling to capture and hold Kohima. Sato considered that his division was being "messed around" without proper planning or consideration for the conditions. Nor did Sato believe that Fifteenth Army headquarters were exerting themselves to move supplies to his division. He began pulling his troops back to conserve their strength, thus allowing the British to secure Kohima Ridge.
On 25 May, he notified Fifteenth Army HQ that he would withdraw on 1 June unless his division received supplies. (For a divisional commander to retreat without orders or permission from his superior was unheard-of in the Japanese Army.) Finally on 31 May, he abandoned Naga Village and other positions north of the road, in spite of orders from Mutaguchi to hang on to his position.
Miyazaki's detachment continued to fight rearguard actions and demolish bridges along the road to Imphal, but was eventually driven off the road and forced to retreat eastwards. The remainder of the Japanese division retreated painfully south, but found very little to eat, as most of what few supplies had been brought forward across the Chindwin had been consumed by other Japanese units, who were as desperately hungry as Sato's men. Many of the 31st Division were too enfeebled to drag themselves further south than Ukhrul (near the Sangshak battlefield), where hospitals had been set up, but with no medicines, medical staff or food.
Indian XXXIII Corps followed up the retreating Japanese. The British 2nd Division advanced down the main road while the Indian 7th Division (using mules and jeeps for most of its transport) moved through the rough terrain east of the road. On 22 June, the leading troops of British 2nd Division met the main body of Indian 5th Infantry Division advancing north from Imphal at Milestone 109, thirty miles south of Kohima. The siege of Imphal was over.
The British and Indian forces had lost around 4,000 men, dead, missing and wounded. The Japanese had lost more than 5,000 battle casualties in the Kohima area fighting, and many of the 31st Division subsequently died of disease or starvation.
Aftermath
After ignoring army orders for several weeks, Sato was removed from command of Japanese 31st Division early in July. The entire Imphal offensive was broken off at the same time. Slim had always derided Sato as the most unenterprising of his opponents, and even recounted dissuading the RAF from bombing Sato's HQ because he wanted him kept alive, as doing so would help the Allied cause. Japanese sources, however, blame his superior, Mutaguchi, for both the weaknesses of the original plan, and the antipathy between himself and Sato which led to Sato concentrating on saving his division rather than driving on distant objectives. Sato refused an invitation to commit seppuku and demanded a court martial to clear his name and make his complaints about Fifteenth Army HQ public. At the prompting of Lieutenant General Masakazu Kawabe, commander of Burma Area Army, doctors declared that he had suffered a mental breakdown and was unfit to stand trial.
The Battle of Kohima proved to be the "high-water mark" of the Japanese offensive into India in 1944. In summing up the significance of the Battle of Kohima, Earl Louis Mountbatten described it as "probably one of the greatest battles in history... in effect the Battle of Burma... naked unparalleled heroism... the British/Indian Thermopylae".
The huge losses the Japanese suffered in the Battles of Imphal and Kohima (mainly through starvation and disease) crippled their defence of Burma against Allied attacks during the following year.
Aerial Resupply
At both Kohima and Imphal, the Allies relied entirely on resupply from the air by British and American aircraft flying in from India and over 'the Hump' (Himalayas) from China until the road from the railhead at Dimapur was cleared. At Kohima the main problem was dropping of air delivered logistics accurately on to the narrow ridgelines and as the fighting intensified and the defended area decreased, the task of dropping supplies became harder and more dangerous.
By the end of the battle Allied aircraft had airlifted over a millon gallons of fuel, 14,0000,000 lbs of supplies, over a thousand bags of mail, 40,000,000 cigarettes, and 12,000 reinforcements into Kohima and Imphal, and flown out 13,000 casualties and 43,000 non-combatants.
The increasing dominance of Allied airpower by this stage of the Burma campaign was a major contributor in helping the Allies turn the tide of the war in this theatre. Allied air supply enabled British and Indian troops to hold out in positions that they might otherwise have had to abandon due to shortages of ammunition, food and water, as reinforcements and supplies could be brought in even when garrisons were surrounded and cut off.
Victoria Cross
Two Victoria Crosses were awarded during the battle:
Memorial
Kohima has a large cemetery for the Allied war dead maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The cemetery lies on the slopes of Garrison Hill, in what was once the Deputy Commissioner's tennis court which was the scene of the Battle of the Tennis Court. The epitaph carved on the memorial of the 2nd British Division in the cemetery
has become world-famous as the Kohima Epitaph. The verse is attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875 -1958), and is thought to have been inspired by the epitaph written by Simonides to honour the Greek who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.
Sources
- Louis Allen, Burma: The longest War 1941-45, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1984, ISBN 0-460-02474-4
- Jon Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War, London: John Murray, 2004. ISBN 978-0719565762
- Field Marshal Sir William Slim, Defeat into Victory, NY: Buccaneer Books ISBN 1-56849-077-1, Cooper Square Press ISBN 0-8154-1022-0; London: Cassell ISBN 0-304-29114-5, Pan ISBN 0-330-39066-X.
- Martin Brayley, The British Army 1939-45 (3): The Far East, Osprey Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1-84176-238-5.
External links
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- Engineers at Imphal and Kohima
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- by Jonathan Webb
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