Kohima

by Arthur Swinson

  The commander of 4th Brigade and so of the column was Brigadier Willie Goschen, probably the only Grenadier Guards officer within several thousand miles. His courteous but somewhat elaborate manners sometimes seemed out of place in the wild regions in which 2nd Division had been serving, but his quiet way of doing things and his obvious command of the job made him very much liked and respected in the brigade. In the afternoon he was summoned to Grover’s headquarters, to be told of the impending move, and got down to studying the route. This (so it was eventually decided) was to be from the iron bridge at milestone 39½, to the west of Jotsoma, up the Druza nala, to the old fortified village of Khonoma (where Lieutenant Ridgeway of the 43rd Bengal Infantry had died winning the V.C. in 1879 during General Nation’s campaign against the Angami Nagas), then along the Khuri Nala in a wide sweep to a spur a mile and a half due south of Pulebadze, and finally north-west to Aradura. By the map the whole journey was just over seven miles and on the ground would probably be two or three times that distance; but even then, four days’ march seemed reasonable. What didn’t seem reasonable was the timing, as the operation had to start the following evening and the administrative work to be carried out by Goschen’s staff, the battalion commander, Robert Scott of the Royal Norfolk, and A. G. Mackenzie-Kennedy of the Royal Scots, was immnese. Scott, who was away on reconnaissance for an attack on ‘Shrewsbury’, one of the features above Jotsoma, had only a few hours’ notice. Every man was to carry 100 rounds, two days’ light-scale rations, half a blanket, a gas cape, water-sterilizing tablets, a dah, his weapon, and two Mills grenades, and there would be an entrenching tool to every third man. So far as the Royal Norfolk was concerned, Robert Scott wanted to wear bush hats, as steel helmets were so hot and uncomfortable in the jungle and tended to fall off as men scrambled up and down the steep cliffs. The chief medical officer, however, got to hear of this and, worried about head wounds, ordered that helmets must be taken. This edict provoked an immediate row with Robert Scott, and things got somewhat turbulent, till John Grover stepped in and said that helmets it must be. So the men, who’d already unpacked and packed their kits, wearily began to unpack them again.

  Robert Scott was one of the great characters in the 2nd Division, a huge man with a great personality and corresponding appetites for food and drink. But he also had a great knowledge and love of music, and in action he always carried a pocket edition of Shakespeare. His occasional rages and bursts of violence annoyed the troops, but like most soldiers they would forgive a ‘character’ almost anything. Scott was something of an Elizabethan, and larger than life. He was also one of the few men to whom great violence and danger were natural elements; he trod the battlefield like a great actor treads the stage.

  The Japanese could overlook the approach to Khonoma, so the operation began just before dark. Henry Conder had gone ahead with guides and porters, an escort from 143 S.S. Company under Major McGeorge, and an officer called Stewart Liberty manning an O.P. for the 99th Field Regiment R. A. (This was a T.A. unit from Buckinghamshire, and its officers were mostly men of some wealth. When Mountbatten, during an inspection, asked Liberty what he did the reply was ‘I’m a draper, sir.’ Mountbatten gave a puzzled frown and passed on down the line.) ‘The going,’ according to Captain Hornor, ‘was slow and tedious, and Khonoma has many and steep entrances. In the pitch dark guides could not be found, and time and tempers were lost on all sides.’ Robert Scott, on arrival, cursed Henry Conder, and Conder cursed the guides and it was dawn before the last company reached the village, and much later before they’d been sorted out. The Mortar Platoon, the machine-gunners of the Manchester Regiment, and the Signallers had been carrying tremendously heavy loads and were whacked. And the Royal Scots were still to come.

  However, the morning of the 26th saw things sorted out somewhat, and everyone had great praise for Major Lloyd, the 4th Brigade D.A. A. and Q.M.G. (that is, the senior administrative staff officer), who worked tirelessly, sorting out stores, allocating porters, and generally bringing order out of chaos. As everyone realized by now, the operation had been launched too quickly and without adequate preparation. But there was no use bellyaching; things would have to shake down as the column moved forward. By 1300 hours, orders had been given out to company commanders, and by them to their platoons, and the milling throng of troops and Nagas had dissolved into something like military order. Major McGeorge fell in the S.S. Company and ordered it to advance, and wearily the troops got to their feet and followed.

  The way continued hard. To quote Hornor again: ‘It was a case of up one steep khud and down the other side, then up a steeper and down again…. Parties of Naga porters were interspersed in the column for their protection and they were quite unable to understand why the troops were out of breath when they reached the top of a hill.’ Out of breath.… To anyone who hasn’t soldiered in Assam the physical hammering one takes is difficult to understand. The heat, the humidity, the altitude, and the slope of almost every foot of ground, combine to knock hell out of the stoutest constitution. You gasp for air which doesn’t seem to come, you drag your legs upwards till they seem reduced to the strength of matchsticks, you wipe the salt sweat out of your eyes. Then you feel your heart pounding so violently you think it must burst its cage; it sounds as loud as a drum, even above the swearing and cursing going on around you. So you stop, horrified, to be prodded by the man behind or cursed by an officer or N.C.O. in front. Eventually, long after everything tells you you should have died of heart failure, you reach what you imagine is the top of the hill… to find it is a false crest, and the path still lies upwards. And when you do finally get to the top, there is the hellish climb down. You forget the Japs, you forget time, you forget hunger and thirst. All you can think of is the next halt.’

  Goschen, with Guardee precision, had ordered that the regular ten-minute halts should be observed on the hour, but in practice this turned out to be impossible. Soon the columns took more frequent short halts which suited the men much better. But the Nagas hated them and complained bitterly; what they wanted to do was travel for some hours without pause, then rest for several hours; and eventually they were allowed to do this. Though how they were able to continue for so long with 80 to 100 lbs. on their backs the troops could never understand.

  Out in front, McGeorge and his men of the S.S. Company had, if anything, a worse time, for they not only had to find the way but very often make it too. For hours on end they would hack through virgin jungle, and cut paths on the sides of hills when the tracks were too steep. (Naga tracks invariably run straight up and down even the steepest hills.) Also, they had to patrol forward and to the flanks. Whatever happened, the column must not let itself be surprised.

  All movement was by day and at night the column bivouacked. It was cold and the jungle was wet that first night. Half a blanket and a gas cape was almost no protection at all, and the discomfort experienced by all ranks was acute. The men of the Royal Norfolk, unfortunately, hadn’t been issued with ‘Tommy Cookers’, so many of them tried to light fires to brew up tea. The result of this was a flood of curses from officers and N.C.O.s who reminded them that they were behind the Jap lines… that for all anyone knew the Jap was engaged on a ‘hook’ himself and might not be far away. Moaning and cursing the whole operation, the troops put out their fires and looked for some other way of producing their beloved char. Then an unnamed genius discovered that if you shaved bamboo very fine it made a smokeless fire, and the word spread happily down the whole column. Hornor records: ‘All cooking was in mess tins, and the general menu was: breakfast—porridge of crushed biscuits, with a little salt and powdered milk added; and, of course, char, made with boiling water if possible, and if not, stewed up to some degree of warmth, painfully, and with much blowing and blasphemy. Tiffin would be a biscuit and a bit of cheese munched on the march, and for dinner a bully stew with selected leaves to add flavour. The monotony was hardly noticed as everyone was so tired.…’ This was on the first day while the light-
scale rations were in use; by the third, things were even worse.

  While 4th Brigade were moving on the right flank, things were happening in the centre and on the left with 5th Brigade. The latter, it will be remembered, had received orders to press on towards Kohima and secure a road junction at a point about one and a half miles from the town, that is about the same distance south of Merema. Hawkins immediately started active patrolling and when the route had been thoroughly reconnoitred sent a company of the Worcestershires to occupy a dominating feature en route. Their orders were to lie doggo during the 24th and cover the advance of the Brigade during the following night. Meanwhile, the Camerons were to watch the Japs in Merema and follow on when ordered.

  To begin with things went well. The Japs left the brigade alone all day, and at 1900 hours Hawkins ordered the column to move. The distance of the advance was only three miles, but the country was intersected by deep nalas and, as time went on and the jungle thickened, it got very dark. When the moon came up that helped a bit, but parties of men kept losing touch, and there was halting and bunching, until the whole advance was a nightmare—just like the crossing of the Zubza valley. Eight hours after starting, that is at three in the morning, the brigade was still a mile from its objective, and the track rose steeply. Then the real troubles began. Lieut.-Colonel John Bunting, who commanded the Field Ambulance, had overloaded his men, and now they couldn’t keep up with the column. Hawkins had warned him before they set out that this would happen, and there was some fierce argument; but Bunting was a strong-minded character and had his way. And now the whole brigade were paying for it. As Hawkins found when he moved forward, after a prolonged halt, the column had broken in two, the leading men of the second half being lost and having no clue as to the way. The guides, of course, were way ahead with the first half of the column. Eventually, Hawkins put his brigade-major, Ian Thor-burn, in the lead, positioning himself some way back, and they made some progress. But then Private Hill, Hawkins’ gunman, called to him:

  ‘Brigadier, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s only ten men behind us.’

  Hawkins looked back and found that this was so. Though he’d been moving very slowly, the remainder of the ambulance men still couldn’t keep up, so the column had fragmented again. The Brigadier was left in front of the Japanese position with ten unarmed men.

  It was almost daylight now. Hawkins couldn’t be certain where they were or how much further they had to go. Eventually he decided that the only sensible thing was to keep moving and hope that everyone else would do likewise and join up again. This is what happened, and within a quarter of a mile Hawkins’ group caught up Thorburn’s which in turn had caught up the leading group. But then there was another halt and, going forward, Hawkins discovered that they were on the wrong track, and the guides from the Worcestershires were nowhere to be seen. Hawkins therefore went right to the head of the column to try and find Jack Stocker, the CO. of the Worcestershires, but was told here that he was out looking for Major Burrell, whose company was providing the guides. So the only thing to do was sit down and wait—and hope that as daylight came the column wouldn’t find itself slap in the middle of a Jap position.

  At first things didn’t look too hopeful. A patrol from the Worcestershires came along and the subaltern informed the Brigadier that he’d just bumped the Japs not far away. More alarming news could hardly be imagined and, as Hawkins put it: ‘If just one patrol of Japs in any strength should find us and proceed to start trouble, anything might happen.…’ Then, just as dramatically, the situation changed. A runner arrived from Jack Stocker to say that he had found their objective and was ordering the Worcestershires up to him. Hawkins went with them ‘and with Herculean labour on the part of the Brigade staff and the commanding officers, the battalions were got into position just as day broke, solidly astride the Jap lines of communication’. Curiously enough, Frank Burrell and his company had not heard the brigade go by in the darkness, though they were in the right place. And the Japs obviously heard nothing either.

  The main jobs on the 25th were to dig in and prospect for water. Burrell had found a pond below the hill and offered to take a patrol along and see that the country around it was clear. To his amazement, however, he found a Japanese company commander sitting comfortably at a table outside his tent, paying out a platoon. Burrell signalled to his men and they eased forward into position. Then the Bren opened up and the officer and the entire platoon were wiped out. Quickly Burrell’s patrol went in, to strip the bodies of documents, maps, money, and personal possessions. They also took the cash box and led away five horses and some mules. No reaction came from any Japanese units in the neighbourhood so the water point was secured.

  Later in the day the Camerons were ordered forward and made the journey in three hours without trouble.

  That night, apart from a small attack on the Lancashire Fusiliers, everything was quiet. And the following day the Japanese ‘Q’ staff in Kohima kept sending their supply convoys out to Merema as ordered; and these were dealt with.

  The brigade was still, however, about a mile from the road junction, its immediate objective, so Hawkins set things moving again. Reconnoitring forward, he found two distinct features ahead and quickly worked out a plan for attacking them. The Worcestershires were put on to the first feature, which they occupied without opposition; and the Lancashire Fusiliers then went forward to deal with the second. This proved to be held, however, and intermittent scrapping went on for an hour before it was taken. Once the troops had consolidated, Hawkins again went forward to reconnoitre and saw a large wooded hill which, he decided, would demand a set-piece attack which would take some while to lay on. In the meantime, the brigade would be halted.

  On the 26th, after an air-drop had been requested, the R.A.F. planes came over and circled the dropping zone, and the whole drop was deposited on target. This was the brigade’s first experience of air supply and they were rather delighted with it, as rations were running short. Another surprise that day was the arrival of a Naga column with ammunition, more rations, medical supplies, and those basic necessities of war—rifle oil and flannelette.

  *

  While the Royal Norfolk and the Royal Scots were carrying out their right hook round Pulebadze, and 5th Brigade were pushing south from Merema, the 2nd Dorsetshires were installing themselves in the northern sector of the Kohima perimeter. Their second-in-command, Geoffrey White, seemed to realize instinctively that this would be the scene of their operations for some time to come and he began examining the complex structure of the land in great detail. The Allied and Japanese positions were now so close, and locked in such a complicated jigsaw, that only a detailed study of this kind, he reasoned, could provide the key to further operation. So, he noted:

  ‘The Deputy-Commissioner’s bungalow spur was divided into four terraces, each separated by a steep bank varying in height from ten to forty feet. Starting from the top, there was the Club square on which in happier days the members had played badminton. Ten feet below the club lay the tennis court. On the south side, the tennis court was bounded by a large iron tank and a long tin building which appeared to be the servants’ quarters. These themselves were sunk so that only the roofs appeared level with the tennis court.

  The next drop was a very steep one of about thirty to forty feet to the terrace on which was situated the bungalow itself in its own compound.

  Finally, below the bungalow, there was another drop which brought us to the lower garden, which overlooked the important road junction twenty feet below.

  On the south side of the spur lay various ornamental gardens, a drive in to the Deputy-Commissioner’s bungalow, and the bungalow of the Commandant of the Assam Rifles.

  One further feature is of interest. On the south side of the club (topmost) terrace rose a small pimple about thirty yards long, fifteen feet broad and twenty feet high.’

  As Geoffrey White found, the most extraordinary feature of this whole s
pur ‘was the impossibility of being able to see what was happening on the terrace next below’. The conformity of the ground, aided by the trees and bushes, also prevented any reconnaissance from the flanks. When Jock McNaught, the commanding officer of the Dorsets, asked Wilbur Bickford of the Royal Berkshires, who’d been there some days, about the ground outside the perimeter, the reply was that his knowledge was still somewhat scanty. The exact location of the tennis court even wasn’t known.

  However, an attack had to go in without delay, and it was agreed that the Royal Berkshires should clear the club square, and the Pimple (which they were now sharing with the Japanese). ‘C Company of the Dorsetshires should attack the tennis court, while ‘A’ Company on the left should use a nala to get round to the north side of Bungalow Spur. The object of the operation was to secure a knoll covering the road junction, so that the tanks could get by and fight their way up to join 5th Brigade. Zero hour was fixed for 0300 hours and the tortuous route was traced with parachute cords. Though the company commanders concerned spent hours peering through the bushes they could see very little; the attack was obviously going to be a tricky one, and needed a good deal of luck.

  However, at 0200 hours, the leading company (‘A’ Company of the Dorsetshires) set off on their approach march along the nala, relying on silence and surprise to get them past the Jap positions by the nala edge. It only needed someone to catch their foot on a tin can and the grenades would come showering down. However, for an hour nothing was heard and Jock McNaught and Geoffrey White waited anxiously at their command post, on the northern edge of the perimeter, where at first light it was hoped they could glimpse a corner of the tennis court. ‘C Company had by now moved off in the centre, towards the tennis court, and there was no news from them either.