Kohima

by Arthur Swinson

  After a brief conference at 1435 hours, the battalion reconnaissance party went forward with most of two companies, covered by a creeping barrage put down by the 99th Field Regiment. The jungle began to thin out, though visibility was seldom more than twenty yards. The brief halt had luckily not impaired the momentum, and the troops rushed post after post as it came into view. A good many Japs ran away, to be shot down by rifle fire, but those who stayed to fight were bayoneted. Robert Scott was now brandishing his revolver, shooting down Japs in between bursts of invective against any soldier who looked like slowing the pace. Later, after killing an enemy officer, he picked up his sword which he now brandished, threatening to cut down any Jap who got in his way. As it approached the objective, the column was now almost going at the double, and Scott realized that if the battalion kept on at this pace they could gain the objective without waiting for the artillery barrage. (It will be recalled that the orders for the operation had laid down that Scott should halt on the edge of the jungle and call for fire.) He believed that although the intensive shelling might demoralize the enemy, it could not compensate for the loss of impetus. He therefore ordered Major Henry Conder, his second-in-command, to bring up the remainder of the battalion and requested that a company of Royal Scots should secure his left flank. Unfortunately it couldn’t be spared, and the snipers were allowed to operate unchecked. But now the objective was straight before the Royal Norfolks and they swept on, using Brens, rifles and bayonets only. Nothing could stop them now, and in minutes they were on G.P.T. Ridge, killing any Japanese who came to fight in the open, firing and grenading the bunkers, then hurriedly fanning out to consolidate. Shouting for his signaller and the radio, Scott called up Division, as Goschen was now out of touch:

  ‘I am on G.P.T. and am consolidating. Casualties pretty heavy but we’ve killed a hell of a lot of Japs.’

  ‘But you can’t be on G.P.T. You haven’t had the fire plan yet.’

  ‘I am I tell you. You’d better send someone up to see.’

  Unfortunately, in the excitement, two platoons had overrun their objective, and came under heavy fire from a bunker position, about forty yards to their left front, later known as ‘Norfolk bunker’. For the next hour, attempts were made to get those caught in the open back over the crest, which was a very desperate business. No smoke grenades were available, and the positions were too close for the artillery to put down smoke. Fortunately some of the Manchesters were available with their medium machine-guns and they put down such a volume of fire that rescue operations were able to go ahead. It may be added that Robert Scott and Henry Conder aided the fire from the Manchesters with Brens which they had positioned on a flank. From time to time, argument broke out between these two distinguished officers as to which one was doing the prettier shooting. During this period, Captain Mather and his ambulance men did great work, moving to and fro across the ridge, and bringing in stretcher cases under fire. Many of the wounded, unfortunately, were lying in such exposed positions that they couldn’t be moved. As Hornor remarks: ‘Lying in hastily dug holes and Jap slit trenches, sheltered from the rain by what little could be scrounged, their cheerfulness and fortitude was amazing and not a complaint was heard even from those very seriously hit.’ Major Twidle lay out in the open for twenty-four hours, periodically visited by Captain Mather. In all, three officers had been killed and six wounded; among the other ranks there were nineteen killed and ninety wounded. This loss was heavy, but the gain of G.P.T. was a considerable one.

  Before dark, two companies of the Royal Scots formed a box 200 yards above the Royal Norfolk, and Goschen made his tactical headquarters with them. All night the process of consolidation went on.

  *

  While 5th Brigade and 4th Brigade were attacking on the flanks, 6th Brigade attacked in the centre, their objectives being the line of hillocks, Kuki Piquet, D.I.S., F.S.D., and Jail Hill. The morning at Kohima had dawned dry but misty, and at 0740 hours, when the Vengeance bombers came over for their first strike, some low cloud blew up Zubza Valley, and slowly rolled over Garrison Hill. However, twenty minutes later, a message reached John Grover, in his tactical headquarters overlooking the battlefield, that the strike had been successful, the sky to the east being clear. During this time, the tanks supporting the Durham Light Infantry for their attack on F.S.D. Ridge were rumbling round the corner beyond the D.C.’s bungalow, to come down the back of the objective. Meanwhile the leading infantry companies were moving across country to link up with them, which they succeeded in doing. The attack went in, but immediately the troops came under fire from enemy positions on the flanks, the cloud having lifted at just the wrong moment. There was a halt while the artillery dealt with the enemy positions causing the trouble, then the attack continued, the troops scrambling as best they could up the steep slopes towards the crest of the ridge. The light tanks, having failed to get up one track succeeded with another and began firing straight into the bunkers. The whole place was honeycombed with them, many concealed in the undergrowth, and the operation was a foul one. Every bunker had to be dealt with individually, and every Jap killed individually. While this was going on, the remainder of the battalion under Lieut.-Colonel Brown were moving along the road in carriers. But rounding the corner by the D.C.’s bungalow, they came under heavy fire from the D.I.S., and Brown ordered his men to scramble out of the carriers and get into cover. They did this with great speed, and then the carriers slewed round and got away. Brown then radioed Brigadier Shapland to tell him what had happened, to be ordered to withdraw through the Dorsets on to Garrison Hill. Brown barely had time to put these orders into effect, than a Jap 75-mm. gun opened up and he was killed immediately. The battalion was now without a commanding officer, and remained so till late that evening.

  By the time of Brown’s death, the two companies on F.S.D. and D.I.S. were already in trouble. One company had made its way along the ridge towards Kuki Piquet, imagining it to be in the hands of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, but it was still held by the Japs, who brought down automatic fire with murderous effect. Man after man cried out as he was hit, and rolled down the slope till he was stopped by a tree. Eventually the remnants of these companies and a company of the Royal Welch Fusiliers went to ground on the F.S.D., where their plight was desperate.

  At mid-day, seeing the tanks on F.S.D. Ridge, Shapland decided to put in an attack on Kuki Piquet with the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Support was given by the brigade mortars, who put down a concentration of devastating accuracy, then two companies advanced to the attack. Immediately they came under heavy fire and several officers were hit; every Jap position was supported by several others, and they were all untouched by the mortar fire. If the companies had advanced further they would have been wiped out and the only course was to withdraw. Even so, the losses were heavy, and the wounded lying out in the open could not be brought in. One platoon, however, did secure a lodgement on the end of F.S.D. and, after dark, two other platoons went forward to reinforce it. Here, though harassed by snipers, they managed to scrape shallow holes with their entrenching tools, and kept hanging on. Fortunately, the tanks were able to help them.

  While this desperate fighting was going on along the whole ridge, the Dorsets were carrying their epic ‘battle of the tennis court’ to a new phase. About mid-day, Major Ezra Rhodes brought his tank along the road, rounded the I.G.H. Spur, and the sharp corner by the road junction, where a company of Dorsets was still holding on, and, guided by Jock Murrills, made for the drive up to the bungalow. Though attempt after attempt had failed, Rhodes was now confident that he would succeed, as Murrills knew every inch of the ground. Slowly the nose of the tank slewed round, and pointed up the drive. A change of gears and it lurched forward and slowly, haltingly, began finding its way up the slope, changing course awkwardly in the confined space, but somehow keeping to the drive. It was halfway up, three-quarters, farther than any tank had been before. Then it reached the top. Breathlessly in their trenches, a company of Dorsets waited. Then
, as the tank advanced towards the bungalow, blasting the bunkers as it went, they leapt into the open and charged forward. At first the Japs were confused, and lost heavily as the shells tore into their bunkers. But then the posts sunk into the bank came alive, and the infantry suffered casualties and had to withdraw. Then the tank, which was having great difficulty in manœuvring itself with the hatches down in such awkward territory, had to retire also. Though robbed of success, this was by far the most promising ‘set’ in the tennis court battle so far; even before the smoke had drifted away, the Dorsets were busy planning another for the next morning.

  Even by 1500 hours Grover was getting anxious about the men on F.S.D. and D.I.S., and told Shapland to start laying on defensive fire tasks, and to send wire forward. At 1630 hours, he also gave orders that a troop of tanks should stay forward, helping the men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers to hold Kuki Piquet for the night; news that they’d come off it didn’t reach him till two hours later, when Shapland came on the line. The withdrawal was a great disappointment to Grover, as he had seen more Japs streaming down the back of Kuki Piquet, to be caught by the D.L.I., and imagined that things had gone well. However, he told Shapland that Kuki Piquet must be won back. And he repeated his order that wire and grenades must be got forward to the men on F.S.D. immediately after dark. Acknowledging these orders, Shapland reported that the Dorsets in the D.C.’s bungalow area were now rather weak, and asked permission to withdraw them. This request Grover refused, pointing out that relief at this stage would prejudice the whole operation.

  Though with the oncoming of night the battle died down in some sectors, in others it kept flaring up. Robert Scott decided that he could not get his wounded in until the large bunker ahead of his position was reduced, so put in an attack with his carrier platoon. This dealt with part of the position, but then came under heavy fire from bunkers lower down the slope, which hadn’t previously been located. The platoon commander was killed and several men, so the attack had to be called off. And the wounded from the carrier platoon lay in the open with the men who had fallen earlier.

  The men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, clinging to their position just below the crest of F.S.D., came under command of a quiet, unassuming subaltern called Ogburn. Before dark a tank had worked its way up to the position, but on the orders of Brigadier Shapland it had been withdrawn. The brigade mortars were then put on instant call, and when the Japs started attacking Ogburn rang up Colonel Braithwaite, asking for D.F. fire, which came down in a matter of seconds. It was so close, though, that Braithwaite thought that some of the shells must have landed in Ogburn’s position so rang him up, asking:

  ‘Are you all right, Ogburn?’

  ‘Yes, fine. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘That D.F. fire was pretty close, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Bloody close—but bloody comforting.’

  So Ogburn held on. During the night there was a curious incident when a Major from another unit made his way up to the position and ordered him to withdraw. Being somewhat doubtful, Ogburn rang Braithwaite, who in turn rang up Shapland. The brigadier’s reply was very short and to the point: ‘Get that Major on the line and tell him to place himself under command of Lieutenant Ogburn. Tell him also that if he moves an inch I will court-martial him. The position must be held.’ And so it was.

  Just before dusk the Camerons had begun withdrawing from Hunter’s Hill. When Colin Hunter returned to his company, after giving Peter Saunders his report, it was to find that the position had deteriorated even further. One of his officers, Bill McKillop, had been hit in the throat, and many more men had been killed or wounded. Waiting till the covering fire came down, the Camerons began filtering down the hill and across the saddle. Here the fire was quite heavy, and more men were hit, before the company was in the relative safety of the position dug by men of ‘B’ Company. This was on the oval, terraced feature called Church Knoll. Here things were not a great deal better, as the Japs kept sniping and mortaring. To begin with, the night was clear and bright, but later on it clouded over, and then after midnight there was a violent thunderstorm and the rain poured down. Crouching in their shallow trenches, the troops were hungry, thirsty, and wet—and still the mortar shells kept exploding among them. When the deluge finished, the mist rolled down the bill, and the Japs chose this moment to come into the attack. They were in great strength, and despite the gallant efforts of the mixed force of Camerons and Fusiliers, part of the position was overrun. In the darkness and mist, as so often in this battle, the fighting became close and confused; and among the shouting, the firing, and the cries of the wounded, it was difficult to make out what was going on. Cohn Hunter and his company headquarters eventually found themselves with no one in front of them, and it was quite obvious that the Japanese had got on to the position in strength. In the darkness and confusion it was found impossible to organize a counter-attack, and by daylight it was seen that the enemy were in occupation of the Knoll. In this action thirty-eight men of the Camerons were killed or wounded, and the Lancashire Fusiliers suffered heavily also.

  The Japanese mortar section had not confined their efforts to Hunter’s Hill; the main position on Naga Village was bombed also, and brigade headquarters received special attention. Lieut.-Colonel Harry Grenfell, of the 10th Field Regiment, was badly wounded by one of the mortar bombs. In his command post, Victor Hawkins was becoming increasingly concerned about the fighting on the eastern sector. The attack was a heavy one, as he could tell, and all he could do was hope that somehow it would be held. Then he heard feet running past his dug-out, and put his head up to discover that the Jocks were going by. At this point, he did not know that Saunders had sanctioned the withdrawal, so formed up his brigade-major and staff to man the broken stretch of perimeter. Later he heard from Peter Saunders that the Jocks had lost their way in the darkness, but were being shepherded together and reorganized. (Actually, parties of Jocks and Fusiliers were streaming back into the perimeter all the next day.) The remaining hours of darkness seemed very long; but the Japs were content with gaining Church Knoll and did not attempt to penetrate any further. When the sun came up over Pulebadze the two battalions were still firm on the ground; and Hawkins gave orders for the Worcestershires to come forward.

  Summing up the day’s battle, the hardest and bloodiest his division had yet experienced, Grover wrote: ‘5th Brigade’s night march in between located enemy positions was an epic performance. When the news reached me, I could hardly believe it…. 4th Brigade’s march over the Naga hills and through untracked dense jungle is also an epic… its attack this afternoon was magnificent—Willie Goschen can’t say enough for the determination of the Norfolks and for Robert Scott’s personal leadership…. 6th Brigade seem a bit under the weather—their plans for F.S.D. and Kuki Piquet went badly wrong, owing to enemy machine-gun sniping….’ Jail Hill, one of the main Japanese positions, hadn’t yet been reached, and the fighting in the centre would obviously be harder yet.

  Altogether though, despite some reverses, the courage and the dash of the division had been tremendous. Grover could feel proud of his men.

  *

  The problem which faced the Royal Norfolk on the morning of the 5th May was the large bunker which had defied capture by the Carrier Platoon the previous night. It lay across the track down to the road and, until it could be reduced, the only route for bringing in supplies and evacuating the wounded was the one used by the battalion in the assault. This was long, exposed, and open to ambush by enemy patrols. The bunker could not, however, be attacked with any real hope of success before its contours had been plotted in more detail and Captain Randle therefore decided to carry out a patrol, which he did with great courage, and plotted the routes for each of the three platoons. The attack was then timed for dawn on the 6th. On the whole it was a quiet day for the Royal Norfolk, after their exertions on the previous day. However, the sniping went on, and soon after a subaltern had been killed, Henry Conder, the second-in-command, was hit in the
arm and leg. Refusing to be evacuated, he lay for some hours in a slit trench pretending to read Robert Scott’s pocket Shakespeare. To all enquiries, he replied that he wasn’t badly hit at all, and was just having a rest. However, as his wounds stiffened and the pretence was getting harder to maintain, Captain Mather gave him a shot of morphia and he was carried away on a stretcher.

  For the last twenty-four hours, Brigadier Warren and 161st Brigade had been pressing forward on Congress Hill to make contact with 4th Brigade, but by noon had failed. The supply position was getting increasingly urgent; even the signs for the R.A.F. could not be put out because of snipers. Some time during the 5th, C.Q.M.S. Huckvale reached the unit, having trekked round from Khonoma. He had great news of the supplies waiting on the road—if only the battalion could reach them. Sadly the Norfolks told him about the bunker.

  In the afternoon of the 5th, the Worcestershires successfully rejoined 5th Brigade in Naga Village, and began digging in on the eastern sector of the perimeter, facing Church Knoll. This regiment had a great knack of making itself comfortable, and soon (according to Major Elliott) ‘we built strong bunkers with thick head-covers, which proved most effective, as some bunkers had direct hits from 75s, but the occupants were uninjured. Each bunker held three or four men with sleeping quarters below ground. The cooking was done by platoons, and some of the cookhouses were below ground.’ Despite these tendencies towards domesticity, the men of the Worcestershires were left in no doubt as to their duty, and each section had a copy of Victor Hawkins’s Special Order of the Day: