Kohima

by Arthur Swinson

  Meanwhile the Royal Scots had attacked the lower (eastern) end of the Spur, supported by tanks moving along the road. The country here was a bit more open but just as difficult. Towards the right, the last ten yards before the objective were so steep and slippery that ascent was virtually impossible. The men became spreadeagled in the mud, and the whole place was a death-trap. Only one soldier was able to reach the top and, try as they might, none of the others could join him. The troops on the left fared much better, and two companies succeeded in getting on to the objective. But the Japanese ‘lay in swarms in the thick jungle on higher ground’ and the Jocks were getting cut up so badly that it was doubtful if they could hold the position. Shortly after noon, Colonel Saunders, who was temporarily commanding the brigade, told Robert Scott of the Royal Scots’ limited success, and ordered him to withdraw his battalion, move across to make contact with them, then attack Charles Hill again from the left. The disengagement was carried out under fire, but in perfect order, and the battalion then began to move round. At 1600 hours, after the two battalions had made contact, Scott called for artillery and a concentration was put down for ten minutes. Two weak companies of the Royal Norfolk went into the attack, but before they could reach the crest were brought to a halt by heavy machine-gun fire and grenades. Somehow, with Robert Scott shouting and cursing at them, these exhausted men found the strength and courage to attack up the last few yards of the slope. They reached the crest, to be pushed down again with more casualties. But the survivors went up again, and again, and again. Shouting at the top of his voice, Scott was pulling out grenades and hurling them over the crest to reach the enemy positions on the reverse slope. He was a demon of fire and fury; a fantastic, gigantic warrior, who did enough to earn one V.C. after another. But even he was not indestructible in a fire as hot as this. Suddenly he was hit and fell back down the slope. Major Murray-Brown, who took over command, realized the hopelessness of trying to capture the position and, having told Scott of his decision, ordered the withdrawal. Word was communicated to the Royal Scots, who withdrew also. Protesting and swearing volubly, Robert Scott was taken back by the doctors—one of whom he threatened to court-martial ‘for evacuating me against orders’. Long after he had reached the A.D.S. and had seen John Grover he was still protesting; but the doctors had their way and he was put into an ambulance for Dimapur. This incredible soldier had seen his last day’s fighting.

  On the 6th Brigade front things had been happening too, and no less dramatically. At 0700 hours, when the telephone line had been mended, Shapland spoke to Bickford who reported that he’d had ‘a quiet night’. Shapland therefore gave orders for him to move on towards the objective, and Bickford got his battalion ready to move at 0830 hours. He knew that there were Japs about, as word had come through that the S.S. Company had suffered some casualties while digging in the previous night, but how many he had no idea. Shapland was in the rear box, formed by the Burma Regiment, and at 0905 hours Braithwaite reported to him, as his battalion moved up to take over the position being vacated by the Royal Berkshires—or in Shapland’s phrase, began ‘stepping up’. The Royal Welch were pitifully weak at this time, consisting of three rifle companies of thirty men each, and a battalion headquarters. Their mortar platoon was put under command of Bickford for this operation, so virtually they were the strength of a single rifle company. The Durham Light Infantry were ordered to take over the route back from the Burma Regiment box and the Burma Regiment took the route running forward.

  About 1000 hours Braithwaite and his men reached Bickford’s position, and then the latter began moving up the hill again. Shapland came up with the tail of the column, and records that: ‘At 1030 hours I moved my Tac. H.Q. forward to R.W.F. where I found the battalion deployed around the “table” top feature and the tail of the Royal Berks moving off.’ An area of jungle some thirty yards across had been partially cleared and the Fusiliers began occupying the shallow slit trenches dug by the Royal Berkshires, and getting out their own entrenching tools to improve them. Before they had time to throw up the first shovelful of earth, however, they came under heavy fire. Braithwaite says: ‘I moved over to speak to the Brigade Commander. It was then we were subjected to intense sniping, M.G. and mortar fire, together with exploding hand grenades. The Japs appeared to be occupying the whole of the face of the jungle in an arc on the battalion front, with the battalion in its weak state… unable to see any real target at which to fire. The front of the box suffered 90 per cent casualties, and the many wounded got back as best they could.’ Major Owen walked forward to try and take command of the front of the box but was mortally wounded before he could reach it. Later, Braithwaite ordered ‘A’ company to try and work round to its right, only to find that it had blasted off all its ammunition into the jungle. Discovering this he countermanded the order.

  Shapland writes: ‘…it appeared that a counter-attack was being built up. I saw a party of Japs moving down from the high ground above us, about half a mile away… into the valley between our small feature and, I think, the Pulebadze feature, but I can’t be sure.’ Shapland rang up John Grover to tell him what had happened, and the phone was hit as he was speaking. Shapland continues: ‘Then the “nonsense” occurred—the forward company on my left “gave”—I think due to exposure to L.M.G. fire which was heavy and came through us. Braithwaite, I could see on my left, with his small Tac. H.Q. tried to rally them but without success. Just previously Owen was hit in front of me and then I got it…. When I came to I joined Braithwaite and ordered him to gather up the remnants and form a rearguard, but I fear the “rot” had set in and my next clear recollections are being helped by my “gun-man” in the 1st Burma Regiment perimeter.’

  Braithwaite’s recollection is understandably somewhat different. In his view the battalion had been led into a trap and the only sensible thing to do was to withdraw as quickly as possible. When Shapland, having been shot through the neck, came over to him, Braithwaite says he asked for permission to withdraw, and adds: ‘At first he would not give me permission to order a withdrawal, though shortly afterwards I was granted that permission.… I knew that if we did not withdraw from the position the battalion would have suffered obliterating casualties to no purpose.’ Braithwaite denies that his forward companies withdrew without orders; in his view 90 per cent of them were wounded and tried to get into cover so that someone could tend them. Shapland still holds to his opinion and wrote recently: ‘I fear the forward elements broke and as far as I remember this started the rot.’

  The situation was confused and desperate; and quite probably the various accounts will never be reconciled. Certainly there is ample evidence that the men of the Royal Welch came streaming down the hillside in disorder and badly shaken, though most of them were wounded. To this Braithwaite replies: ‘We were led into a trap—but not on ground of our own choosing.’ He points out that both Bickford and himself were against the operation and predicted disaster; and adds that he felt strongly, not for himself, ‘but on account of the continued and unnecessary slaughter of these wonderful men of all ranks who had always fought so bravely’.

  How did it happen that the Japanese were able to fall on the Royal Welch with such devastating fury? Shapland denies that it was an ambush, and thinks that ‘it was a hook put in by the Japs when they discovered the Royal Berks on the “Table” either the night 27th-28th or in the early morning of the 28th… at the worst it was a local tactical success.’ John Grover said at the time that ‘it was a skilfully planned counter-attack.’ Whatever it was, it certainly doomed the Aradura expedition.

  The Royal Berkshires had only moved up a short distance when they heard the firing behind them. This journey, up and down precipitous slopes and through thick jungle, had taken, however, some hours. Colonel Bickford decided to dig in, a difficult task in these circumstances as the battalion was only equipped with entrenching tools and no picks and shovels were available. Also on slopes such as these and in heavy rain it was useless merely to
dig slit trenches on their own as they would immediately fill with water; drainage trenches had to be dug also. Then head cover had to be provided against the inevitable mortar barrage. Soon after eleven o’clock, Shapland came on the phone to say ‘he was in our old H.Q. and the Japs were firing at anyone who put his head out.’ According to Bickford, he didn’t seem very concerned, and said ‘the R.W.F. have sent a patrol to deal with the enemy’. The firing could be heard going on and increasing in volume. Then at noon Major McGeorge came back to report that his company had found enemy positions along what they thought was the crest, though they couldn’t be sure about it. He added that ‘the going was impossible for heavily laden troops’. By the time the conversation between McGeorge and Bickford was over, the firing down below them was considerable and Shapland came on the phone again and told Bickford ‘to use his discretion as to whether to move forward or withdraw’. Bickford wisely decided to stay where he was for the night. It rained heavily again, so his men spent their third consecutive night soaked to the skin; fortunately, however, rations came up next morning; and they were followed the next day by orders to withdraw.

  So 6th Brigade abandoned its operations on Aradura. From them, Bickford has written ‘several lessons can be drawn, and some of these, mercifully, were applied… in the jungles of Malaya. A commander at any level must accept more readily the advice of his subordinates—the men on the ground. He must say what is wanted and allow them to carry out his orders… in their own way. To move one man or a thousand through dense jungle in single file is a dangerous and intolerably slow operation. They must move in their own time and not be chased forward from the rear without regard to conditions prevailing. One cannot plan an attack unless one knows what one is attacking and the troops in turn must know and see what they are up against. This cannot be done without intelligence reports and personal reconnaissance. No one can act on the evidence of a blurred and deceptive air photograph…. More attention should be paid to… infiltration, as practised by the Japs.…’

  However, the situation at Kohima on the 29th May was that despite the most heroic exertions by their weakened units the operations of 4th and 6th Brigades against the left flank of the enemy had proved a disastrous failure.

  Things had gone no better on the other flank. Undeterred by the failure against Church Knoll on the 25th, Frank Messervy laid on a strike by Hurribombers, which again blasted away at this long disputed feature. The 4th/i5th Punjab went in for their third attack, taking flame-throwers and pole charges; but for the third time they were shot off the hill, and mortared and shelled. But with fanatical courage and a tremendous devotion to duty, they had another go. On this desperate action, Arthur Marment writes: ‘The attack went in; the Sikhs on to Church Knoll and the Punjabi Mussulmen on to Hunter’s Hill. The Sikhs got to the top but were again driven off by heavy mortar fire and a tremendous amount of defiladed fire. Then “C” Company had a go and, led by Colonel Thomas [the commanding officer during Conroy’s absence] himself, got to the top, but it was just impossible to stay. The Jap held every bit of cover… Stanley Berens was mortally wounded… George Shepherd was wounded twice, and Colonel Thomas was marvellous in the way he brought in a very badly wounded Captain Forest who was to die soon afterwards. Captain Jeffrey was wounded too.

  Marment, during this action, was in the brigade command post, with Brigadier Loftus Tottenham and some of his staff, and at one point happened to ask his orderly to send up sandwiches for everyone. Half an hour later the orderly appeared, ‘hopping and skipping in and out of the shell-holes with the sandwiches’. When he uncovered them, not only were the crusts seen to have been cut off but the plate was a china one with the regimental crest on it. Loftus Tottenham was somewhat amazed.

  The attack failed.

  Church Knoll and Hunter’s Hill now seemed to be indestructible by any known means; the troops dug into it impervious to shells, mortars, anti-tank fire, flame-throwers, or any other weapon in the Allied armoury. Their ammunition seemed as limitless as their courage. They were apparently undefeatable. This was another bitter moment for the Punjabis; perhaps the worst failure in their whole history. Their dead were littered over the whole hill—one company came back only forty strong—and they hadn’t gained a yard of ground nor taken possession of a single bunker.

  Failure on the right; failure on the left. Failure by British troops; failure by Indian troops. On the night of the 28th, the battle of Kohima reached another crisis. By all the Intelligence reports, the Japanese were losing men fast; they were sick, demoralized, and half-starved. And yet they still fought like tigers. Still ground every attack on them into the mud. How could 33rd Corps break through? Its battalions were shrunken to the size of companies; its men were weak and exhausted. Hundreds of them should have been evacuated long ago, and how long they could be asked to go on attacking up these steep slopes in the face of merciless machine-gun fire was a question no one could answer.

  Also, as Stopford, Grover, Messervy, and indeed everyone who thought about it realized: even when the battle of Kohima had been won the enemy had a series of magnificent defensive positions, running back almost to Imphal. There was Viswema and Kigwema… the great height of Mao Songsang, and the ridge at Maram, almost another Keren in itself. In view of this, how could the advance ever reach Imphal? Time was beginning to run out. The men of 4th Corps had been living on short rations for some time now and were weakening too. They had fought long and courageously and were still defying Tanaka’s fanatical efforts to break through their defences. But their endurance wasn’t limitless. Even if it had been, it would be no good without supplies; and the airlift had run into yet another crisis. By some miracle, Mountbatten had persuaded the Americans to let him keep the seventy-nine transport aircraft till the 15th June—that is, another eighteen days. During that time the reserves would still be dropping; and if 33rd Corps could still not break through, the outlook would be bleaker than it had ever been. In fact, even at this late stage, Mutaguchi’s ‘private speculations’ might not prove so wildly unrealistic after all.

  But it so happens time and time again in the history of war that when the crisis is reached, when the result of a battle is poised on a knife-edge, something happens which tips the balance. It may be something spectacular, like Cromwell’s charge at Edgehill, or the arrival of Blücher on the field of Waterloo; or it may be something small and unnoticed, something unrecognized till years later. And so it was at Kohima.

  The officer taking over the 4th/1st Gurkhas (the battalion that Warren considered unfit for action) was a young twenty-seven-year-old soldier called Derek Horsford. After the failure of the attacks by the Punjabis on Church Knoll on the 25th, Brigadier Loftus Tottenham said that the Gurkhas must have a go. But, as Horsford says: ‘I refused, in fear and trepidation, to carry out a third frontal attack and offered an alternative plan—the Gun Spur operation. To my relief Tottenham listened very carefully and agreed the idea, but I remember him saying before I left to plan in detail: “It had bloody well better work”.’ In the event, it did, and was probably the most brilliantly planned and executed operation in the whole battle.

  The sketch map on page 155 shows that to the north and south of Hunter’s Hill the ground sloped away in two pointed spurs. The southern of these was known as Gun Spur, and the features on it (starting from the low ground upwards) ‘False Crest’, ‘Nose’, and ‘Basha’. The slopes of the spur were steep and wooded, and Horsford’s plan was to carry out a night infiltration. The tactical position of Gun Spur was important, because it was from here that fire could be brought down on the reverse slopes of Church Knoll and Hunter’s Hill. It was no use, however, infiltrating a few men on to the Spur; the force had to be strong enough to resist any counter-attack until the rest of the battalion could join it the following day. And before anything could be done at all, the Gurkhas had to carry out intensive and highly coordinated patrolling so that the entire Jap positions could be plotted, their weak spots pinpointed, and routes through t
hem charted. If surprise wasn’t achieved the operation would obviously disintegrate before it started.

  The battalion was still situated on Treasury Hill, from which it had a fairly close view of the Jap positions. Briefing the patrols was therefore comparatively easy, but (to quote Major Sir Christopher Nixon, one of the company commanders) ‘The execution of the patrols was far more difficult, as once a patrol had left our position it had to descend into a deep jungle-clad valley, cross the intervening nala at the right point, and then in the blackness, scale the precipitous slope that led to Gun Spur.’ All patrolling had to be carried out at night, so it was lucky that three nights were available before the operation; it was lucky, too, that the battalion had some excellent N.C.O.s ‘who had learned their craft the hard way in the Arakan’. The patrols each consisted of two men, an N.C.O. and a picked rifleman, and their task, in each case, according to Horsford, ‘was to report whether Basha, Nose, and an intermediate feature, False Crest, were held by the Japs or not. If they were held, then the patrols were to probe right into their defences and to report the strength of the enemy and the nature of their defences.’ The patrols left Treasury just after dark and were ordered to leave the Spur an hour before first light, to avoid any Jap suspicions that the Gurkhas were particularly interested in the position. To quote Horsford again: