Battle Story: Kohima 1944 E-Book

Dr Chris Brown

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Battle Story
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 180

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The Battle of Kohima was the turning point in the Japanese invasion of India and known as 'the Stalingrad of the East'. It was a bitter battle fought in three stages, spanning three months and ending with the siege of Imphal. Against the odds, the Commonwealth troops conducted a brilliant defence and counter-attack to pave the way for the re-conquest of Burma. If you want to understand what happened and why - read Battle Story.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am, as ever, indebted to my wife Pat and to my children for putting up with my interminable ramblings about this little book – and every other book that I have written – and to my editor at The History Press, Jo de Vries, for her advice and patience.

I am particularly grateful to the team at ‘Dekko’, the newsletter of the Burma Star Association, who kindly printed an appeal for help which brought me into touch with Mrs Rhona Palmer and Mrs Angela Benions. Mrs Palmer provided me with a copy of her father’s memoir of the war in Burma and has generously allowed me to include several photographs from his collection. Mrs Benions very kindly lent me a copy of her father’s recollections of the Burma theatre when I failed to find one myself.

I would also like to draw attention to the work of the Kohima Educational Trust. When the veterans of the battle held their last reunion in 2004, they decided to set up a trust to provide assistance with the education of Naga children in memory of the Commonwealth troops who fell in battle, and as an expression of gratitude for the sacrifice and loyalty of the Naga people in whose land the battle was fought. The trust does remarkable and valuable work, and is a cause worthy of support; it can be contacted at www.kohimaeducationaltrust.net.

This book is dedicated to three ‘gentlemen gunners’ who served their country in the Second World War: my father, Peter Brown, who had the good fortune to arrive at the Burmese border at the best possible juncture of the campaign; to my late father-in-law, Robert Smith, who served in North Africa and Italy; and to John Laindon Cornwell, who was murdered by the Japanese Army on Ballali Island in 1943.

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Timeline

Historical Background

The Armies

Commonwealth Forces

The Imperial Japanese Army

The Days Before Battle

The Battlefield

Opening Manoeuvres

En Route to Kohima

The Noose Tightens

Surrounded

FSD Hill and Kuki Piquet

Relief

The Final Onslaught

After the Battle

The Legacy

Orders of Battle

Further Reading

Copyright

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1 A few of the 200,000 labourers who helped to construct and maintain roads through incredibly challenging country. (Courtesy of Mrs Angel Benions/A.W. Hickman, The Dawn Comes Up Like Thunder (AB/AWH))

2 Roads in Burma were prone to landslides and this often delayed the delivery of vital supplies. (AB/AWH)

3 Burmese landscape. Much of the campaign took place in mountainous terrain with fast-flowing rivers. (AB/AWH)

4 Kohima Ridge looking south from the air. (Author’s collection)

5 A Grant tank loaded onto a raft for a river crossing. (AB/AWH)

6 General Stopford. (Author’s collection)

7 Medium artillery. (AB/AWH)

8 Much of the field artillery had to be towed by jeeps due to the very difficult nature of the terrain. (AB/AWH)

9 Senior officers in a jeep passing troops at Mandalay. The jeep became a vital tool in the Burma campaign. (AB/AWH)

10 25-pounder guns; a workhorse of the Commonwealth artillery arm. (AB/AWH)

11 Commonwealth troops manning a light anti-tank gun. Although there was relatively little Japanese armour deployed to Burma, anti-tank weapons proved to be very useful against Japanese bunkers. (AB/AWH)

12 General Slim. (Author’s collection)

13 Gurkhas advancing with tanks to clear the Japanese from the Imphal-Kohima Road in North Eastern British India. (Author’s collection)

14 Japanese anti-tank rifle. Virtually ineffective against the later models of Commonwealth tanks, the anti-tank rifle was still a potent weapon against Bren Carriers and armoured cars. (Author’s collection)

15 Japanese flag. (Author’s collection)

16 A typical Japanese soldier. (Author’s collection)

17 Riflemen with the Arisaka rifle. (Author’s collection)

18 A speeding Ha-Go Type 95 tank. (Author’s collection)

19 The Japanese knee mortar grenade launcher. (Author’s collection)

20 A convoy approaching Kohima. (AB/AWH)

21 A convoy on the Kohima Road. (AB/AWH)

22 A landslide blocking the road – a common event in Burma. (AB/AWH)

23 Crossing the Irrawaddy River. (AB/AWH)

24 Loading a pack howitzer onto a raft for a river crossing. (AB/AWH)

25 Commonwealth troops in action in the Arakan. (AB/AWH)

26 American supply trucks on the Burma Road. (AB/AWH)

27 A captured Japanese artillery piece. (AB/AWH)

28 A dug-out at Kohima. (AB/AWH)

29 Defoliation from shelling at Kohima. (AB/AWH)

30 Extensive air supply operations occurred throughout Burma. (AB/AWH)

31 Shattered houses on the Kohima battlefield. (AB/AWH)

32 Commonwealth troops on the march. (AB/AWH)

33 Commonwealth troops manning a light anti-tank gun. (AB/AWH)

34 Airstrike on a Japanese supply train. (AB/AWH)

35 A Fourteenth Army observation post directing artillery fire. (AB/AWH)

36 British troops at Kohima. (Author’s collection)

37 A view of the shell-scarred Kohima battlefield. (AB/AWH)

38 Battle-damaged building at Kohima. (AB/AWH)

39 Chinese and American drivers on the Burma Road. (AB/AWH)

40 Battlefield defoliation. (AB/AWH)

41 Devastated buildings immediately after the battle. (AB/AWH)

42 Japanese prisoners of war. Very few Japanese soldiers surrendered until the later stages of the campaign in 1945. (AB/AWH)

43 The Kohima Memorial. (AB/AWH)

Maps

Map 1

Commonwealth lines of communication in the Arakan. (Butler, James, The War Against Japan, p.5)

Map 2

The Japanese Ha-Go Offensive, February 1944. A diversionary operation designed to force Slim to commit forces in the Arakan, well away from the targets of the main offensive against Imphal. (Butler, p.140)

Map 3

The Kohima area. (Butler, p.360)

Map 4

The actions proceeding Kohima at Ukhrul, Sheldon’s Corner and Sangshak. (Butler, p.248)

Map 5

Kohima Ridge. (Butler, p.347)

Map 6

The Commonwealth counter-offensive from Imphal. (Butler, p.352)

INTRODUCTION

Operation U-Go: the Road to Kohima

The battle, or more accurately, the siege and relief of the Burmese hill town of Kohima is a tale of incredible endurance and collective courage. Although usually associated with one British rifle battalion – 4th Royal West Kents (RWK) – elements of many other regiments, corps and departments were involved; in fact, the majority of the combat soldiers in the garrison comprised Ghurkha, Indian, Nepalese and Burmese soldiers whose service has been rather forgotten.

Although the Japanese attack would eventually fail, it is all too easy to overlook the incredible feat of soldiering involved in bringing a whole division with artillery, engineering and medical assets through many miles of crude tracks, steep mountains, thick forests and dense jungle of western Burma and north-east India. The 31st Division of the Imperial Japanese Army made the march from the Chindwin to Kohima with virtually no motor transport, so General (Gen.) Kotoku Sato’s plans largely depended on what his men could carry on their backs, plus trains of mules, ponies, horses and elephants. His force also had no air support, a very limited capacity for dealing with casualties and very poor lines of communication. Despite the assurances of his superior, Gen. Renya Mutaguchi, it proved impossible to achieve a reliable line of supply and, although his force attempted to drive large herds of cattle to provide beef on the hoof, his men were soon challenged by hunger, the terrain and an increasingly competent and confident Commonwealth army.

Map 1 Commonwealth lines of communication in the Arakan. (Butler, James, The War Against Japan, p.5)

Unlike the Allies, 31st Division was unable to receive supplies by airdrop due to the lack of transport aircraft and the fact that the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) had, by this time, achieved air superiority. The further the Japanese penetrated into India, the longer their lines of communication; so much so that the planning actually relied on the anticipated capture of supplies from the Allied forces. Although this was a rather optimistic assessment of the situation, it was not totally irrational. The experience of the campaigns in Malaya and Burma had led Japanese staff planners to believe that Commonwealth troops were, at best, brittle in the face of a determined attack and could be driven backwards at great speed, abandoning huge quantities of equipment and stores as they went.

Even so, the Japanese were aware that the Allies were steadily becoming more proficient at living in the jungle, and were also becoming more capable and confident on the battlefield. It was also abundantly clear that the war in general was not going well.

If the huge Pacific perimeter that had been seized in the opening phases of the war against the Commonwealth and the United States was to be held, and if the war in China was to be brought to a favourable conclusion, it was highly desira dble – in fact vital – to knock Britain out of the Asian war completely. To achieve this, the Japanese Army had to obtain a victory on the scale of the Malaya campaign of 1942 and the first Burma campaign that had followed it. If such a victory could be gained, and if the Commonwealth forces in Burma could be utterly destroyed, it was assumed – perhaps correctly – that British prestige in India would be so totally undermined that it would be impossible to raise enough troops or gather sufficient material to form a new army capable of preventing Japanese expansion into north-east India. They thought it was inconceivable that Britain herself could provide a new army for the re-conquest of Burma, given her extensive commitments in Africa, Italy and the imminent invasion of Europe. Even if such a force could be found, the transport demands of the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres would prevent it from being deployed to Asia or being supplied with the tools for the job.

If such a victory could be brought about, then there would be implications for another theatre of operations: China. By 1944 the stream of war materials to Chiang Kai-shek’s armies had steadily increased, and assistance from Britain and the United States in the training of soldiers had improved the quality of the Chinese formations. Breaking the logistic chain would not necessarily force Chiang Kai-shek to abandon the struggle immediately, but there was a possibility that the internal threat from Mao Zedong’s communists, coupled with the reduction in supplies, might force China to agree to an armistice or, at the very least, reduce their capacity for offensive operations.

In addition to these factors, there was another, more serious issue facing Japan: her chief ally, Germany, was clearly losing her war against the Soviet Union. Although Stalin was committed to the defeat of the Nazis as his prime objective, he was also committed to the defeat of Japan. The brief Russo-Japanese conflict of the summer of 1939 had been an ignominious experience for Emperor Hirohito’s forces, but there was a possibility that forcing the British out of the Asia theatre might encourage Stalin to abandon any thoughts of pursuing the war with Japan once Germany had been defeated.

The campaign in the Pacific was a more pressing matter. Realistically, it is very unlikely that even total success in Burma – which would allow redeployment of resources to the Pacific and reduce strain on the economy – would have given Japan sufficient power to resist the American and Australian forces in the Pacific; however, this may not have been fully grasped in Japanese Government circles. In practice the United States was utterly determined to defeat Japan due to public pressure after Pearl Harbor. The policy of defeating Germany first would undoubtedly have been pursued regardless, but America was not going to give up her plans for recovering her position in Asia and the utter defeat of Japan once Victory in Europe (VE) was achieved. By the summer of 1944 this was clearly on the cards.

Operation U-Go was a tremendous gamble and the odds were even less in favour of a Japanese victory than was apparent to the commanders in Burma – Generals Mutaguchi and Masakazu Kawabe – or to the prime minister, Gen. Hideki Tojo. Equally it is not clear that any other course of action would have been much better. The Japanese Government was aware that the odds were gradually, but steadily, tipping in favour of the Allies in every theatre. If they chose to adopt a defensive policy in Burma then the Allies would eventually gain the initiative and be able to choose the time and place of their offensives, and Japan could not possibly find the men or material to defend the entirety of the Burma-India border in addition to her commitments in China and the Pacific. The chances of victory in Burma were slim, but it was still the only possible route for turning the course of the war in 1944.

TIMELINE

1937

Burma granted autonomy as a separate state from British India, though this was not enough to satisfy the growing Burmese desire for independence

1942

Japanese invasion of Burma

1943

Commonwealth forces mount their first Arakan offensive; Gen. Mutaguchi starts pressing for an offensive toward and into India

1944

January

Launch of the Ha-Go offensive in the Arakan to tie down Commonwealth forces ahead of the main U-Go offensive against Commonwealth IV Corps at Imphal. Orders were also given for an attack by Gen. Sato’s 31st Division to advance toward Kohima to cut the Dimapur to Imphal road

8 March

Japanese 33rd Division commences the march on Tiddim

15 March

Japanese 31st Division crosses the River Chindwin

19 March

Elements of 31st Division encounter resistance from 50th (Indian) Brigade under Brigadier (Brig.) Hope-Thompson at Sheldon’s Corner

21 March

Brigadier Hope-Thompson concentrates his brigade at Sangshak to block – or at least impede – the advance of 31st Division

22 March

General William Slim starts to form a force to hold the Imphal-Kohima area

26 March

50th Parachute Brigade withdraws from Sangshak

27 March

31st Division renews its march on Kohima

29 March

Imphal comes under air attack and Japanese troops cut the road between Dimapur and Imphal

3 April

4th Battalion RWK, 161st Brigade arrive at Kohima only to be ordered to move to Dimapur

4 April

Leading elements of 31st Division engage at Kohima

5 April

RWK return to Kohima to find that the town is already under attack

6 April

The first properly coordinated Japanese attacks on the town of Kohima make considerable progress, but fail to completely cut communications with the balance of 161st Brigade at Jotsoma

8 April

Elements of Japanese 138th Infantry Regiment separate Jotsoma from Kohima. General Mutaguchi orders 138th Infantry Regiment to proceed to Dimapur

10 April

Monsoon rains arrive two to three weeks earlier than normal, impeding both Japanese and Commonwealth troop movements and re-supply. The Kohima garrison gives up DIS (Daily Issue Supply) Hill as untenable

17 April

FSD Hill and Kuki Piquet taken by the Japanese, severely reducing the perimeter held by Commonwealth forces

20 April

Leading elements of 2nd Division force their way through the Japanese lines and into Kohima

23 April

General Sato orders a final assault on the remaining Commonwealth strongpoint, Garrison Hill. The attack fails and Sato decides it is time to adopt a defensive posture to prevent Commonwealth forces gaining full use of the road to Imphal

25–29 April

2nd Division completes the relief of the Kohima garrison and mounts extensive flanking movements as part of a series of operations to contain and destroy the Japanese 31st Division

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Archaeological evidence indicates that there was widespread human settlement in Burma by about 11,000 BC, but the first recorded population consisted of the Pyu people who migrated into Burma from China about 2,200 years ago and who had developed a sophisticated community of city-states before AD 400, and by the Mon people who settled along the southern coast. In the ninth century the Myanmarese, or Burmese, moved in from the Kingdom of Nanzhao and, by the middle of the eleventh century, had established the Pagan Empire which unified most of what we call Burma or Myanmar today. The Pagan Empire disintegrated in 1287 and several rather smaller kingdoms – including Arakan, Ava and Hanthawady – emerged as the more significant centres of authority. By 1600 the Toungoo Dynasty had brought all of these kingdoms, and the various minor Shan states, under their control and established Burma as one of the most significant nations in South Asia.

In the later eighteenth century the Toungoos were replaced by the Kongbaung Dynasty, which remained the dominant political force in Burma for more than 100 years. A series of wars with Siam (Thailand) and China achieved only marginal gains for either side and, in the early ninth century, King Bodapaya started to look west to expand his kingdom, conquering Assam and Manipur. This brought Burma into greater contact with the British, who waged three major wars between 1824 and 1885, when they finally completed the conquest of Burma. In part, the establishment of British colonial rule was an exercise in protecting northern India from Burmese expansion, but it was also a reaction to the French acquisition of Indo-China (modern-day Vietnam) and a desire to ensure that Britain would be the most significant European power in South and East Asia and serving notice to Siam that the British would not tolerate Siamese territorial ambitions in northern Malaya. Additionally, there was a view that the expansion of British rule and the development of institutions on the British model was, of itself, a desirable objective and, of course, there were bound to be commercial opportunities – not least the prospect of mineral and agricultural development, and the expansion of markets for British goods and services.

1 A few of the 200,000 labourers who helped to construct and maintain roads through incredibly challenging country. (Courtesy of Mrs Angel Benions/A.W. Hickman, The Dawn Comes Up Like Thunder (AB/AWH))

Burma changed radically under British rule. A lengthy campaign in the north eventually eliminated local potentates who might become a threat in the future, and Burma was ruled by a colonial administration as, essentially, a province of British India. The advent of the British wrought huge changes in Burmese society and there was considerable economic and social development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The opening of the Suez Canal and technological improvements in shipping made it economical to export Burmese rice and teak to Europe, but very few Burmese people benefitted from this. The formation of a British colonial administration attracted large numbers of Indian merchants, who cleared mixed farming communities in order to increase rice production and who engaged in money-lending and land speculation which naturally bred considerable resentment among the local population.

The new government also afforded opportunities in the administration itself and, in the years after the end of the Third Burma War in 1885, the civil service and the courts came to be dominated by the British, Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Burmese, effectively excluding Burmese people from power as well as the economy. The Indian population was further enlarged by the development of a railway system. Most of the labour and the vast majority of the administrative staff who would run the system came from India and established their own communities with very little social interaction or integration with the Burmese people.

By the 1920s a nationalist movement had developed largely, though not exclusively, among the Buddhist Burmese. The movement enjoyed some success and by the 1920s Burma had achieved its own legislating body and a degree of autonomy within the structure of British India, and there were moves afoot to ensure greater Burmese participation in all the arms of government. However, any hopes that these concessions would be enough to bring about a general acceptance of British rule were, at best, optimistic. Unlike India or Malaya, Burma had a long-established tradition of being a single – if not always very united – political entity. Although the developments of the 1920s were reasonably popular, they fell far short of Burmese nationalist aspirations; they did little or nothing to the benefit of the mass of the population and, if anything, helped to further the influence of the Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Burmese communities.

CHARLES PAWSEY MC

Sir Charles Ridley Pawsey served as a lieutenant, and later captain, in the Worcestershire Regiment during the First World War, during which time he won a Military Cross for gallantry. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was the District Commissioner for the Naga Hills area and was known as a staunch advocate of the liberties and well-being of the Naga people. He stayed in Kohima throughout the siege and could be seen visiting posts and generally doing whatever he could to bolster morale and support the efforts of the garrison commander, Col Richards.

The nationalist movement, though itself divided along political, cultural and regional lines, continued to grow in strength and a spate of riots in 1934–35 led the British to consider a greater degree of Burmese autonomy, thereby giving Burma a more distinct identity within the imperial structure. A series of initiatives brought about a new political structure for Burma. Under the 1937 Government of India Act, Burma’s legislature would wield much more authority, but any process of passing power and influence away from the Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Burmese community was going to be very gradual, so once again, although the measures were not unpopular, they were not enough to undermine the nationalist movement.