Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  (i) To anticipate the enemy offensive by crossing the Chindwin and attacking him first.

  (ii) To hold the Japanese 33rd Division in the Tiddim area and fight with all available forces on the line of the Chindwin, hoping to destroy the enemy as he crossed the river, with part of his forces on each bank.

  (iii) To concentrate 4 Corps in the Imphal plain and fight the decisive battle there on ground of our own choosing.

  The first alternative—to forestall the enemy and attack ourselves—had all the glamour of boldness. Indeed, there were not wanting senior visiting officers who urged me ‘to fling two divisions across the Chindwin’. I am afraid they left my headquarters thinking I was sadly lacking in the offensive spirit, but somehow I have never had great confidence in generals who talk of ‘flinging’ divisions about. ‘Fling’ is a term for amateurs, not professionals. Besides, I noticed that the farther back these generals came from, the keener they were on my ‘flinging’ divisions across the Chindwin. Had I accepted their advice the enemy could easily have concentrated, along good communications, a force greatly in excess of any we could maintain east of the Chindwin. We should have fought superior numbers with the dangerous crossing of a great river behind us and with our communications running back through a hundred and twenty miles of the worst country imaginable. Similarly, but to a somewhat lesser extent, if we decided to fight at Tiddim and on the west bank of the Chindwin, we still had this difficult and precarious line of communication behind us. Whatever success we had in those conditions we were unlikely to achieve a decisive result—and it was a decisive success I wanted.

  At this stage of the campaign against an opponent as tough as the Japanese and one whose morale was still as high as his was, to gain a decisive success I must concentrate against him a force superior both in numbers and armament. I therefore decided to adopt the third course—to concentrate 4 Corps in the Imphal plain, and fight a major battle there to destroy the Japanese Fifteenth Army. I was tired of fighting the Japanese when they had a good line of communications behind them and I had an execrable one. This time I would reverse the procedure. An important consideration, too, in all my calculations, was that the enemy, if he was to avoid destruction, must win his battle before the monsoon set in. If he had failed by then to occupy the Imphal area he would be in an impossible supply position. Another factor was, of course, our supremacy in the air and the ability it gave me to use air supply. It should be remembered, however, that this would be dependent during the monsoon on the possession of all-weather airfields. The only ones we had were Imphal and Palel; there were none, nor could we construct them in time, on the east bank of the Chindwin.

  I realized that from the point of view of morale, a withdrawal was not the best opening for a decisive battle. It would be unpopular with commanders and troops alike. Both the 17th and 20th Divisions were at the time confident, with good cause, that they could not only hold their positions but drive back the enemy. The abandonment of so much British territory would depress our friends and exult our enemies all over the world. It would spread alarm and despondency in India, our base. Yet it was not the hundreds of square miles of jungle mountains that mattered, but the chance to destroy the enemy’s forces. That done, territory could easily be reoccupied. I was sure, too, that if commanders explained the design to their men, they would see its soundness, and morale would not suffer.

  In war it is all-important to gain and retain the initiative, to make the enemy conform to your action, to dance to your tune. When you are advancing, this normally follows; if you withdraw, it is neither so obvious nor so easy. Yet it is possible. There are three reasons for retreat: self-preservation, to save your force from destruction; pressure elsewhere which makes you accept loss of territory in one place to enable you to transfer troops to a more vital front; and, lastly, to draw the enemy into a situation so unfavourable to him that the initiative must pass to you. It was for this third reason that I now voluntarily decided on a withdrawal. Here was the contrast between the forced retreat of 1942, whose object became merely the preservation of our troops as an intact force, and that of 1944, which was carefully calculated to lead inevitably to our regaining the initiative. Yet so many scrambles to escape have been described as ‘withdrawals according to plan’ that I was not surprised to find it hard to convince many, especially highly placed civil officials, that it was possible to fight defensively and even to retreat, yet keep the initiative.

  Scoones and I discussed the alternatives and we both came independently to the same conclusions—to fight at Imphal. It would be very largely his battle and it was important to have his agreement with the basic ideas on which I wanted it fought. General Giffard also approved my reasoning, and it was a great satisfaction to me to know that his judgment supported me. The plan for what we knew would be the decisive battle was first for Imphal plain to be put into a state of defence. This entailed the concentration of the scattered administrative units and headquarters into fortified areas, each of which would be capable of all-round defence and completely self-contained in ammunition and supplies for considerable periods. The two all-weather airfields at Imphal and Palel, vital to the defence both for supporting air squadrons and for air supply, became the main strong-points or ‘keeps’ in the defence scheme. The garrisons of these fortified areas and keeps were to be found mainly by the administrative troops themselves, so that the fighting units and formations would be free to manoeuvre in an offensive role. These preparations were put in hand and throughout February went on at an increasing tempo. Almost every unit in the Imphal plain moved; a large number of strongly defended localities were dug, wired, and stocked. The evacuation of non-combatant and labour units began, while the training of the remaining administrative troops in a fighting role for die defence of their own localities was intensive.

  A most important part of the plan was the provision of reinforcing formations for Assam. Within the army I proposed to pull the 5th Division out of Arakan and move it by air and rail from Chittagong to Dimapur and Imphal. General Giffard had arranged to send a division from India to replace it, and, when that arrived, I contemplated sending the 7th Division from Arakan after the 5th. I also asked for another division to be railed from India to Dimapur, but here there was a difference of opinion between me and the administrative staffs at 11th Army Group, who, with considerable mathematical justification, declared that the already overburdened Assam railway would not be able to compete with the added strain of transporting and then maintaining so large a reinforcement. General Giffard compromised by sending me the Indian Parachute Brigade of two battalions, and by putting in hand arrangements to move the 2nd British Division if it became urgently necessary to do so.

  The 4 Corps tactical plan was for the 17th Division to move rapidly back from Tiddim to the Imphal plain, dropping one brigade group some forty miles south of Imphal to block the Japanese advance. The remainder of the division would be in Corps Reserve. The 20th Indian Division was to withdraw from its forward positions in the Kabaw Valley, concentrate in the Moreh area, and, when all ‘soft’ units on the line of communication had been cleared to Imphal, to fall back slowly on Shenam, which would be held at all costs. The 23rd Indian Division, leaving one brigade group in the Ukhrul area, was to form with 17th Division, the Indian Parachute Brigade, when it arrived, and 254 Indian Tank Brigade, the Corps offensive reserve. The Japanese would thus be allowed to advance to the edge of the Imphal plain, and, when committed in assaults on our prepared positions, would be counter-attacked and destroyed by our mobile striking forces, strong in artillery, armour, and aircraft.

  The plan that Scoones and I had hammered out was, I was sure, the right one. It only remained to decide when it should be put into force. The essence of all military planning is timing. A brilliant plan wrongly timed, put into operation too early or too late, is at the best a Tame thing and at the worst may be a disaster. When and by whom was the order for the 17th and 20th Divisions to retire on Imphal to be given? It was h
ere I made a mistake. I was, in my own mind, convinced that a Japanese offensive on a large scale against Imphal was coming, and I judged it would begin about the 15th March. On the other hand, it was impossible to be absolutely certain that it would come then, or even that it would come at all. If we pulled back to Imphal and it did not come, not only should we look foolish, but we should have unnecessarily jeopardized the preparations for our own offensive, abandoned much territory, and done nothing to help the Chinese advance in the north. The effect on morale could not but be bad. I therefore decided that all preparations to put the plan into force should be made, but that the word to start the withdrawal to Imphal should be given by the local commander, Scoones, when he was sure that a major Japanese offensive was imminent. What I should have done was to act on my own judgment, and give a definite date early in March on which the withdrawal should begin, and another, some days later, by which the two divisions should be in their new positions. To put the responsibility on local commanders was neither fair nor wise. I was in a better position to judge when a real offensive was coming for I had all their information, and, in addition, intelligence from other sources. Local commanders were bound to be reluctant to retreat without at least a trial of strength; all the hesitations that could assail me would inflict them threefold. There was thus a real risk, that I did not appreciate, of the withdrawal being started too late. Instead of being carried out without interference, it might degenerate into a series of fights to break through involving our reserves and disorganizing the whole plan of battle.

  Happily oblivious of the cardinal error I had made and of its possible consequences, I continued preparations to meet the expected onslaught. I was confident that our plans were sound, and I was supported by the knowledge that General Giffard was preparing to send me, should need arise, reinforcements from India. These, added to the formations I proposed myself to transfer from Arakan, would give me the superiority in strength that I wanted to make sure that the invading divisions were not only repelled but destroyed. It seemed that the enemy was about to play into my hands and give me the opportunity I had always hoped for, to cripple his army before we re-entered Burma. It was in this rather complacent mood that I awaited the battle. I should have remembered that battles, at least the ones I had been engaged in, very rarely went quite according to plan.

  CHAPTER XIV

  HOW IT HAPPENED

  THE story of the prolonged and hard-fought battle of Imphal–Kohima that developed from the plans of Japanese and British commanders is not easy to follow. It swayed back and forth through great stretches of wild country; one day its focal-point was a hill named on no map, the next a miserable, unpronounceable village a hundred miles away. Columns, brigades, divisions, marched and counter-marched, met in bloody clashes, and reeled apart, weaving a confused pattern hard to unravel. Yet the whole battle can be divided into four reasonably clear phases:

  (i) Concentration—as each side strained every sinew to bring its forces into the fight.

  (ii) Attrition—as week after week in man-to-man, hand-to-hand fighting, each strove to wear down the other’s strength and to break his will.

  (iii) Counter-offensive—as gradually, but with increasing momentum, the British passed to the attack, and

  (iv) Pursuit—when the Japanese broke and, snarling and snapping, were hunted from the field.

  The opening moves in the Imphal–Kohima battle took place in the first days of March 1944. Then the 17th Division about Tiddim was at the top of its form. Cowan, who still commanded it, and his men, far from being depressed by the set-backs they had sustained, were thirsting for revenge. He had benefited from experience and was no longer trying to capture the Japanese positions by attacks along the knife-edge ridges of the Chin Hills. In the constant patrol fights, ambushes, and raids that his Gurkhas and the Japanese carried on against one another, the 17th Division was now having very much the better of the exchanges. Cowan was skilfully using the freedom of movement this gave him to begin the systematic isolation and piecemeal reduction of the enemy positions. He had already captured some of the most important of the lost ground, and the whole of it seemed relentlessly falling within his grasp, when the conditions of his local war changed suddenly and completely.

  The Japanese offensive began on the 6th March 1944. On that day troops of 214 Regiment of the enemy 33rd Division began a series of attacks on our detachment covering the Manipur River bridge near Tonzang, twenty miles north of Tiddim. Cowan sent a battalion to reinforce our men. The assaults grew in strength, until it was evident the whole 214 Regiment, the equivalent of one of our brigades, was flinging itself against our Tonzang positions. Our defences held stoutly, but were in danger of being overwhelmed. Cowan, therefore, on the 13th, dispatched his 63 Brigade to make sure of this vital position in his rear.

  Meanwhile, on the 8th March, another Japanese column, 215 Regiment, crossed the Manipur River from east to west, several miles south of our positions about Tiddim, and moved north by tracks through the hills. Its move was reported, but it was difficult to judge its strength, and neither patrol nor air reconnaissance could keep touch with it in the thick jungle. On the 13th came ominous news. The Engineer officer commanding at Milestone 109, nearly sixty miles north of Tiddim, reported that a Japanese force was in the hills a few miles to the west of his camp. In that camp, except for a few Indian Sappers and Miners, were only administrative units of no fighting value, including some five thousand unarmed labour who had halted there on their way to Imphal. Part of a Jat Indian machine-gun battalion, the only fighting troops within reach, was hurriedly diverted to the camp, which, scattered and low lying, was most difficult to defend. These rather alarming events had been reported to Scoones, and at 2040 hours on the 13th March he telephoned Cowan, ordering him to withdraw his division to the Imphal plain. At 2200 hours Cowan gave out warning orders for the withdrawal of his division the next day.

  It was a long column that began to wind through the hills in the afternoon of the 14th. The whole division, including its headquarters, went on foot; transport was kept for stores, ammunition, supplies, and wounded. It took with it two thousand five hundred vehicles, three thousand five hundred animals, and a number of sick. The first day it covered twenty miles, blowing up bridges behind it and sowing mines and booby traps in the camps it had left. The Japanese followed the tail of the column cautiously, with sound tactical sense, concentrating on cutting in ahead and blocking the road.

  This they did in two places. The first near Tonzang, where the 214 Regiment made a detour round our detachment while it was heavily engaged, and established itself astride the road on the Tuitum Saddle, two miles north. The second was at the unhappy Milestone 109 camp. As the Japanese 215 Regiment closed in, the small garrison there soon found itself in difficulties, hampered as it was by a mass of non-combatants. On the 14th March the road to Imphal was cut. The 17th Division dealt promptly and effectively with the first block, that beyond Tonzang. On the 16th, Gurkhas with strong artillery support stormed up the Saddle, broke into the Japanese defences with bayonet and kukri, and, with surprisingly few casualties to themselves, chased the enemy off the Saddle. The Japanese would have been wiser to have held it in greater strength, but they were having their difficulties. The road was now open, but only to Milestone 109.

  Nor was the Tiddim road the only sector from which danger threatened. By the beginning of March 1944, the Japanese 15th and 31st Divisions were poised along the east bank of the Chindwin, from Tanga in the south to Tamanthi in the north. Apart from patrols, no troops of these divisions crossed the river until on the 14th March a small detachment attacked one of our ‘V’ Force observation posts, twelve miles west of Homalin, and was repulsed. On the night of the 15th/16th March, however, both divisions began to move in earnest. The 15th Division, to whom had been entrusted the honour of taking Imphal, crossed in three columns about Thaungdut, with orders ‘to advance through the hills like a ball of fire’. It was to follow the main axis Myothit-Sa
ngshak-Litan and thence round the north of Imphal. Its task was first to isolate and then capture the town. Its columns moved light and fast. On the 18th March, while one of them was pressing our 20th Division’s flank near Myothit, others were approaching Ukhrul and contact was made with them about ten miles south-east of the village, some fifty miles from Imphal.

  The 31st Japanese Division at the same time crossed the Chindwin in eight columns on a forty-mile front from Homalin to the north. Keeping on the right of their 15th Division, these columns began to push westward like the probing fingers of an extended hand. It was difficult in such close country to discover either their strength or their objectives, but Scoones managed to make a fairly accurate estimate of both. As fighting developed it seemed that one main column, 58 Regimental Group, was to capture Ukhrul and then push for Kohima while another, 60 Regimental Group, turned west on Imphal. Other columns were to cut the main Kohima road north of Imphal, and still more to stream through the Somra Hills towards Jessami, south-east of Kohima. Then the hand was to close, the columns would converge, and, as the Japanese commander described it, they would ‘at one fell swoop fall on Kohima and annihilate the British on that front’. Full of confidence in themselves and contempt for their enemy, they plunged forward.

  In Imphal I was impressed by the steadiness of commanders and troops. Scoones, in control of the tactical battle on the whole Assam front, had been faced with a difficult and momentous decision. The fog of war had descended. He was deluged with reports and rumours of Japanese columns which seemed to flit in and out of the jungle, now here, now there; little was definite and nothing certain. Two things, however, were clear: first that the 17th Division was cut off, and, second, that a strong threat to Imphal itself from the east was developing. Time was short. The commander of 4 Corps had to make up his mind, there and then, whether he would hold his reserve, the 23rd Division, to meet the thrust at Imphal or send the bulk of it towards Tiddim to help out the 17th Division. Calmly he balanced the risks of each course. Rightly he decided to hold to our plan for the battle and to follow the course which would, if successful, more quickly concentrate his corps in the Imphal plain. He therefore sent, first one brigade, and then a second of the 23rd Division to fight down the road towards the 17th Division.