Kohima

by Arthur Swinson

  At S.E.A.C. headquarters Mountbatten received some good news: permission to keep twenty Commando aircraft, borrowed from the ferry over the Hump, for a further month. This meant that more troops could be flown in, which meant in turn an easing of the strain on the Assam railway line. Orders were therefore sent out that the 2nd Division should not be routed to the Arakan, as previously planned, but to Dimapur. 33rd Brigade of 7th Indian Division was also routed to Assam. Actually, the leading brigade of the 2nd Division, the 5th, had already entrained at Ahmednagar on the evening of the 26th, and the other two brigades were getting ready to follow it. So the paths of all the troops to fight at Kohima were now delineated; some, like the Assam Rifles and the Assam Regiment, were already in the area; some, like the 161st Brigade were on their way; some like the 33rd Brigade, were still in the Arakan, and others, like the brigades of the 2nd Division, were still strung out over fifteen hundred miles in India. Sato was only thirty miles away as the crow flies and sixty by jeep track; but every hour was to bring the two sides closer to their head-on collision. The pattern was set, irrevocably.

  *

  Stand-to in the Jessami box on the morning of the 28th was understandably somewhat tense, but no Japs could be seen, and eventually the men were allowed to stand down again. However, at 0855 hours Major Askew, a company commander, phoned Colonel Brown to say that twenty-four Japs with an officer at their head were marching towards him along the track from Kharasom.

  ‘All right, old boy. Hold your fire.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The Japs came on till they reached the wire across the road, then stood bunched round their officer, some forty yards from the forward Bren guns. For a moment there was silence. Then, after a curt order, the Brens started firing in bursts and all the Japs crumpled into a grotesque heap in the middle of the road. Two of them managed to crawl away into the undergrowth, but the remainder lay where they were. Again there was silence; and ‘Bruno’ Brown signalled back the news to Richards at Kohima. The result was an urgent request for any items of identification from the Japanese corpses, and a naik and a V Force scout volunteered to crawl forward to try and bring in one of them. The naik didn’t get very far before he was killed, but the scout courageously went on alone. It was no use though, as Japanese reinforcements had arrived and any attempt at movement in the open was punished ruthlessly. Even a platoon was pinned down and further attempts had to be called off. The Japs didn’t attack in daylight, however, despite their increasing numbers, and contented themselves with efforts to try and provoke the garrison into revealing their machine-gun and mortar positions. They were disappointed.

  At Kohima things had livened up, too. Richards was sending away non-combatants, and useless mouths, back-loading stores to Dimapur, and making what arrangements he could for water storage. The latter were unsatisfactory, to say the least, as the water supply point was over on G.P.T. Ridge in a very exposed position, and the only receptacles for storage were two tarpaulins dug into the ground and six steel tanks which would obviously become riddled with holes once fighting began, and a large iron tank in the bungalow area. In the midst of these administrative problems, Richards learned that the 161st Brigade would be arriving with the immediate task of extricating the detachments of the Assam Regiment at Jessami and Kharasom. This was good news; and on the face of it transformed the whole situation. But by now Richards was cautious; things were far too fluid and might just as quickly deteriorate again.

  At 10.30 a.m. Slim, Stopford, and a small group of staff officers flew from Comilla to Imphal for a conference with Scoones. Here they discussed the question of control and command, as between 4th Corps and 33rd Corps, and decided that, as Imphal was obviously about to be cut off, 4th Corps could not control the situation at Kohima. This was therefore to be added to Ranking’s command. At 12.15 p.m. the party took off again and flew up the road, over Kohima, and touched down at Dimapur airstrip. Transport was waiting to take them to Ranking’s headquarters and here they discussed with him the deployment of the troops now coming under his command. Concentration areas for the brigades of the 2nd Division were agreed, and for the 23rd L.R.P. Brigade which was now on its way from Hailakandi.

  But a more immediate problem, which was thrashed out at a number of meetings in the afternoon and evening, was to decide on a policy for the defence of Dimapur and Kohima. Slim’s view was that ‘Kohima Ridge was an infinitely preferable defensive position to Dimapur’. Kohima, he considered, covered Dimapur, and ‘as long as we clung to the ridge, we had some chance of concentrating our reinforcements as they arrived, without too much hostile interference’. Slim estimated that the Japanese would reach Kohima by the 3rd April—in six days’ time. If they decided to split their forces and send a regimental group against Dimapur, he thought it would not arrive there before the 10th April, and by that date the 5th Brigade of the 2nd Division should be on the ground. Slim therefore gave Ranking three tasks: to prepare Dimapur for defence and when attacked to hold it, to reinforce Kohima and hold that to the last, and to make arrangements for the reception of reinforcements. These tasks were embodied in a written directive.

  The only formation available to defend Kohima, apart from the fragmentary units of the garrison, was the 161st Indian Brigade which was now arriving. In the early evening its commander, ‘Daddy’ Warren, reported to 202 Area headquarters where Slim ‘put him in the picture’. Warren (to quote Sum) was ‘steady, unruffled, and slow speaking’. This is undoubtedly true; but he was also fast-thinking and fast-moving, and a very live wire indeed. His regiment was the 8th Punjab, and he spoke excellent Urdu and Punjabi, and was very good with the troops. He had been a staff officer in the Arakan during the heart-breaking battles of the previous year, and had few illusions about the business of fighting the Japanese. He had a strong temper; and a good deal of prejudice against the British service. But he was a fine soldier, and his moment was drawing near. On this hot, sticky evening in Dimapur, as Slim records: ‘…he heard me out, asked a few questions, and went quietly off to get on with the job. I hope I had as good an effect on him as he had on me.’ Warren’s job, of course, was to assemble his brigade and move it out to Kohima as soon as possible.

  While Slim and Warren were talking, the advance guard of the 13 8th Regiment began their attack on the box at Jessami. Under covering fire from their machine-guns, the Japs rushed forward, hurling grenades and shouting their war cry—Banzai! Banzai! The men of the Assam Regiment held their fire till the attackers were close, then poured Bren and rifle fire into their ranks. The leading platoons were decimated and the assault was broken up, but time after time the Japs re-formed and came on again with fanatical courage. Often the pressure was so great that it seemed the defence must be over-run, but then attacks would be broken off just as suddenly as they had started. Crouching in their bunkers, the Nagas, the Kukis, the Karsis, and all the tribesmen that went to make the Assam Regiment, changed their red-hot Bren barrels, reloaded their magazines, then waited for the next attack. Sometimes in the silence they could hear the whimpering of the Japanese wounded lying just outside the wire. This sound would be swamped by the prelude to a new assault… and so the night wore on. Only a few enemy soldiers managed to infiltrate through the outer perimeter, and they were despatched by the men in the supporting bunkers. When daylight came their bodies were searched and a unit flag and items of equipment were discovered. Obviously, these had to be sent back to Kohima at once and, from several volunteers, Lance-Naik Jogendra Nath and a sepoy were selected. Choosing their moment, they slipped down the western escarpment, disappeared into the jungle, and headed west.

  Meanwhile, the rest of the unit brewed up tea and ate their breakfast, while the Japs provided them with the morning’s entertainment. This consisted of a strafe by the infantry gun, which did little damage, followed by appeals in English and Hindustani. ‘O, Indian soldiers, stop fighting for the British and come and join us. We are freeing your country from domination.’ Needless to say, the
re was no response to these invitations.

  At Kharasom things were not so happy. The company there under Captain Young had now withstood an attack by vastly superior forces for two days and nights, and suffered a good many casualties. But all communication had been severed with battalion headquarters on the 27th so ‘Bruno’ Brown could only guess at the situation. And what worried him most of all was that he could do nothing to help.

  During the morning there was a telephone call from General Scoones, who rang up from Imphal to ask what the situation was. Brown told him that it was under control at the moment, but his battalion could not be expected to hold out many days as the enemy forces increased. Scoones is said to have replied: ‘Keep on hitting them and we will see what help we can give you from this end.’ The incident is puzzling as, not only was Scoones himself about to be cut off in Imphal and therefore unable to help, but at the meeting with Slim the previous morning he had handed over responsibility for Jessami to General Ranking. Perhaps he merely meant that help would reach Brown from outside; or perhaps the line was indistinct and Brown misunderstood him; one cannot be certain. What was certain, however, as Brown realized only too well, was that the order to fight to the last man and the last round still stood; whatever happened, there could be no retreat.

  As already mentioned, Colonel Richards was very concerned about the order, and when Warren arrived at Kohima on the morning of the 29th, with General Ranking, he raised the matter in discussion and pointed out that the Assam Regiment was being attacked by larger forces than had been imagined. Pawsey’s information from his Nagas was that a whole division was advancing. Warren responded immediately and, with Ranking’s agreement, laid on an operation to extricate all three garrisons from Phek, Jessami, and Kharasom. Briefly, the plan was that the 4th/7th Rajputs would deal with the first two positions, while the 1st/1st Punjab would look after the third. (The other battalion, the 4th Royal West Kents, were to remain in reserve at Kohima.) A major snag was that the telephone line to Brown’s headquarters had now been cut and, as the radio set had gone out of operation, there was now no communication at all. So Richards suggested that he send an officer called Wemyss, who knew the lay-out of the position at Jessami, to Dimapur, with the idea that he should go up in an R.A.F. plane and guide it to the spot. A message in clear would then be dropped in the centre of the perimeter, ordering Brown to withdraw. Wemyss set off at once, and the next day he got aboard a plane and headed for Jessami; but the message fell in the battalion’s old bivouac area instead of the perimeter, and Brown and his men fought on where they were. About this time some important news reached 4th Corps headquarters: the Japanese had reached the Kohima-Imphal road and established a block at milestone 72, near Maram. This was the leading battalion of the 58th Regiment, Miyazaki’s advanced guard; although this energetic commander had been delayed four days at Sangshak he was still ahead of schedule.

  When the sun came up on Jessami on the morning of the 30th March, it soon became evident that the Japanese had been considerably reinforced. Apart from small arms there was mortar fire and artillery, and the whole bunker position became thoroughly uncomfortable. In an effort to retaliate, ‘Bruno’ Brown ordered his battalion mortars into action, and for a while they put up a gallant show, breaking up several attacks. But by now the enemy was on the high ground to the south, overlooking the shallow weapon pits in which the mortars were sited, and one by one the detachments were knocked out. The men of the rifle companies, cramped and crouching in the bunkers, had repulsed more attacks than they could count and were palpably tiring; but their casualties had as yet been slight and they remained in good heart. Every post still held. No doubt the strain was greatest on Brown for he knew that the Japs wouldn’t be satisfied until the position and the men in it had been obliterated; and, as they had artillery, apart from the small infantry gun, they would obviously succeed. But even Brown did not realize the true size of the column; that it contained the 13 8th Regiment, less one battalion, the whole of the 124th Regiment, a battalion of the 31st Mountain Artillery, and Sato’s headquarters.

  Some time that day, the R.A.F. plane came over the Jessami box again, guided by Wemyss, and a second message was dropped. This landed rather closer—about fifteen yards outside the perimeter. Immediately parties of men were sent out under covering fire to try and retrieve it, but the Japs had spotted the message too, and were trying to get it themselves. So a dog-fight started, both sides trying to get someone to the message; and. in the end the Japs won. As it was in clear, they were able to read it and the plan was given away.

  In fact, the plan didn’t get very far. To begin with, the 1st/1st Punjab, who were moving along the track running from Tuphema to Kharasom, ran into a detachment of Miyazaki’s columns and a sharp engagement followed in which about a hundred Japs were killed and the Punjabis suffered seventeen casualties. It was pretty obvious, however, that the Japanese were in considerable strength, and any advance on Kharasom by one battalion was out of the question. But, in the event, there was no need for it to try, as on the afternoon of the 30th General Ranking cancelled the whole operation and ordered the 161st Brigade back to the Nichugard Pass.

  The circumstances which caused this extraordinary change of plan were as follows. As Stopford’s staff arrived and he became operational, he naturally took command of the area, and Ranking therefore came under him. On the 29th, at Comilla Slim had asked Stopford to set down his appreciation of the situation. This he did and on the morning of the 30th handed it to Slim who approved it. Slim then asked him to draft a new directive to Ranking, ‘telling him the lines on which to function’, and it was agreed that Stopford should fly to Dimapur, hand this to Ranking personally, and presumably discuss any difficulties with him. Now, it is evident that Stopford saw the situation somewhat differently to Slim, and his directive set out Ranking’s tasks in order of priority as follows:

  1. The defence of Dimapur.

  2. The protection of the railway.

  3. The retention of a firm base and mobile striking force at Dimapur.

  4. The defence of Kohima.

  It followed logically from this that as Kohima had been given bottom priority, the 161st Brigade should be brought back from there and established in the Dimapur area.

  Stopford left Comilla by air at 3.30 p.m., arriving at Dimapur ninety minutes later, but it would seem that he must have telephoned Ranking earlier, as the latter put through a call to Warren. During this he ordered him to break off the action his brigade was engaged in at once, and to concentrate at Nichugard, eight miles from Dimapur, by 1800 hours the following day. Warren protested angrily at this order and persuaded Ranking to go out to Kohima and discuss it. When Ranking arrived, he found Warren, Richards, and Pawsey waiting for him on the roadside, and they attacked him at once, asking what information the order had been based on. Ranking said that a column of Japanese had been seen by the R.A.F. moving northwards, round the left flank of Kohima, towards the railway. There was therefore some danger that, should Warren’s brigade be left at Kohima, it would be cut off.

  Warren and Richards had no faith in the R.A.F. report, and Pawsey would have none of it either. He said: ‘If the Japs were there, my Nagas would have told me. What the pilot saw was a group of villagers returning home after their day’s work.’ Ranking saw the sense in this interpretation and promised to inform Stopford. Meanwhile, Warren impressed upon him the serious tactical repercussions of any withdrawal of his brigade. He argued: ‘Once we are dug in here, the Japs wouldn’t dare by-pass us—they couldn’t leave such a strong force in their rear.’ Ranking listened to this argument, but insisted that the order to withdraw must be obeyed. At this Warren asked permission to fly to Comilla and put the case to Slim personally, but Ranking wouldn’t agree. Finally, after some heated exchanges, he returned to Dimapur, leaving Warren, Richards, and Pawsey horrified and depressed. With their detailed knowledge of the ground, all their military instincts told them that the loss of Kohima Ridge would be a major
disaster, jeopardizing the whole front. They knew that if the Japanese 31st Division occupied it from end to end, weeks, perhaps months, of action would be needed, with thousands of casualties before the position could be restored. They knew also that the only force which could deny the Ridge to the Japanese was Warren’s brigade; that the garrison troops could not possibly hold out for more than a few days.

  Apart from this major issue, there was the fate of the Assam Regiment. Warren considered that to abandon this unit would not only be inhuman, but dishonourable; such an action went against all his ideas of soldiering. Richards and Pawsey agreed with him, and after more argument on the telephone it was conceded that the Rajputs should be allowed an extra twenty-four hours to enable them to extricate the garrison from Jessami, the withdrawal being timed ‘not before the night of the 31st March/1st April, and preferably on that night’. This was the only concession.

  To Charles Pawsey the situation was especially ironic. Having spent twenty-two years in Assam, his knowledge of its terrain was immense; and ever since the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 he had tried to warn the Army (through his reports to the Governor) that Kohima was just as vulnerable as Imphal. Persistently he urged that it should be allocated first-class troops and be put into a state of defence. Though a Civil Servant by profession, Pawsey did not lack military knowledge, having served in the First World War where he won the Military Cross and bar. When the 4th Corps Sappers improved the old government bridle path, making it jeepable from the Chindwin to Kohima, he increased his representations, but without effect. And now what he had feared, what he had foretold, was coming to pass.