Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  Even when these moves were in hand my anxiety was hardly lessened. They would take time—and time was so short. It was a race between the Japanese onrush and the arrival of our reinforcements. As I struggled hard to redress my errors and to speed by rail and air these reinforcements I knew that all depended on the steadfastness of the troops already meeting the first impetus of the attack. If they could hold until help arrived, all would be well; if not, we were near disaster. Happily for the result of the battle—and for me—I was, like other generals before me, to be saved from the consequences of my mistakes by the resourcefulness of my subordinate commanders and the stubborn valour of my troops.

  Pushed out some thirty miles to the east, to cover the approaches to Kohima, was one battalion, the newly formed Assam Regiment, with detachments of the Assam Rifles, the local armed police. The main weight of the enemy advance fell on this battalion, in the first battle of its career. Fighting in its own country, it put up a magnificent resistance, held doggedly to one position after another against overwhelming odds, and, in spite of heavy casualties, its companies although separated never lost cohesion. The delay the Assam Regiment imposed on the 31st Japanese Division at this stage was invaluable.

  Behind this screen, desperate efforts were in hand to make Kohima Ridge into a great road-block to bar the way to Dimapur. Non-combatants and hospital patients had already been evacuated, and, under the energetic and determined leadership of Colonel Richards, commanding Kohima, the men in the convalescent depot, some five hundred of them, were issued with arms, organized into units, and allotted to the defences. Every man who could be scraped up from administrative units was roped in to fight. More trenches were dug, dressing stations prepared, defences manned, but it was a very miscellaneous garrison of about a thousand who stood-to as the covering troops were forced slowly back, and it was a grim prospect they faced as fifteen thousand ravening Japanese closed in on them.

  I had flown to Dimapur, and with Imphal in grave danger of being cut off and with the battle there by no means going according to plan, I realized I could not expect Scoones properly to control what would be tactically a separate battle at Kohima. I therefore placed Major-General Ranking, who commanded the base and rear areas of Assam, known as 202 Line of Communication Area, in control of all operations in the Kohima-Dimapur-Jorhat theatre, until the arrival of 33 Corps. It was for him a sudden plunge from administrative duties in a peaceful area into the alarms and stresses of a savage battle against desperate odds. And it would be against odds. In front of Kohima, Ranking had the Assam Battalion; in Kohima, besides the convalescents, he had a raw battalion of our allies, the Nepalese Army, and a couple of independent companies of the Burma Regiment. The only fighting unit he had in hand was a battalion of the Burma Regiment. Not much, all told, with which to meet a full-strength Japanese division. I admired the way in which he and his subordinate commanders faced their peril. In Dimapur I had asked the brigadier commanding the base what his ration strength was. ‘Forty-five thousand, near enough,’ he replied. ‘And how many soldiers can you scrape up out of that lot?’ I inquired. He smiled wryly. ‘I might get five hundred who know how to fire a rifle!’ But, as at Kohima, everything that could be done to put the sprawling base into a state of defence was being done. As 1 walked round, inspecting bunkers and rifle pits, dug by non-combatant labour under the direction of storemen and clerks, and as I looked into the faces of the willing but untried garrison, I could only hope that I imparted more confidence than I felt.

  During the last days of March, 161 Brigade of the 5th Indian Division completed its fly-in from Arakan. Never was a reinforcement more welcome. Reports now showed that the whole of the Japanese 31st Division was ten to twenty miles from Kohima and that our covering force could not hope to delay them seriously, still less hold them. Even if the Assam battalion managed to fall back reasonably intact, it was doubtful if Kohima could hold out. The immediate problem was whether to give up Kohima and concentrate on holding the vital Dimapur or to reinforce Kohima with 161 Brigade as it arrived and try to hold the enemy on the ridge until the 2nd British Division came to the rescue.

  I discussed the situation with Ranking. Kohima Ridge was an infinitely preferable defensive position to Dimapur, which it covered. If we had not enough troops to hold Kohima, we certainly had not enough to hold 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. We decided, therefore, to hold the Kohima Ridge, sending forward for the purpose 161 Brigade to meet the Japanese and stop them, temporarily at least, on or south of it.

  Later when in one of the Dimapur offices I held a conference of commanders, it was not surprising that I saw some apprehensive faces turned towards me. I gave them three tasks:

  1. To prepare Dimapur for defence and when attacked to hold it.

  2. To reinforce Kohima and hold that to the last.

  3. To make all preparations for the rapid reception and assembly of the large reinforcements that were on the way.

  As always happens on these occasions, as soon as everybody was given a clear task into which he could throw himself, spirits rose and even I began to feel a little better. I took Warren, who commanded 161 Brigade, outside and walked him up and down the path while I gave him, without any attempt to minimize the hazardous task he was being set, a fuller view of the situation, and especially of the time factor. I told him I calculated that the enemy could reach Kohima by the 3rd April and, even if we held there, might by-pass our garrison and be attacking Dimapur by the 10th. I could not expect more than one brigade of the 2nd Division to have arrived by that time, or the whole division before the 20th. Actually the Transportation Services materially improved on these timings. Steady, unruffled, slow-speaking, Warren heard me out, asked a few questions, and went quietly off to get on with his job. I hope I had as good an effect on him as he had on me.

  After my talk with him, Warren took his brigade to Kohima on the 29th March, and, such was his energy, that the next day one of his battalions was in action with the enemy, over twenty miles south, while the rest of the brigade was disposed to cover the withdrawal of the Assam Battalion. I had meanwhile left Dimapur and sent Ranking my written directive, in which I stressed that his main task was to safeguard Dimapur base. There were at this time reports and rumours of Japanese forces within striking distance of Dimapur, and he decided that the situation necessitated troops for the close defence of the base if he was to carry out this task. He, therefore, much to Warren’s annoyance, ordered 161 Brigade back to the Nichugard Pass, eight miles south-east of Dimapur, to be in position there by the evening of the 31st March. In taking this action Ranking was, I think, influenced understandably by the stress I had laid on his primary task—the defence of Dimapur base. The reports proved untrue, and the withdrawal of the brigade was an unfortunate mistake. Had it remained south of Kohima, Warren would almost certainly have at least delayed the Japanese advance on Kohima for several days. That would have put a very different aspect on the battle which followed.

  Japanese pressure towards Kohima was mounting. With the withdrawal of 161 Brigade, the covering troops were in grave difficulties as the enemy outflanked and enveloped them. The Assam Battalion, still fighting stubbornly and losing heavily, was split in two. Half of it, about two hundred strong, made its way into Kohima and joined the garrison; the rest evaded encircling Japanese and, in good order but exhausted, reached the main Dimapur road behind 161 Brigade.

  I have spent some uncomfortable hours at the beginnings of battles, but few more anxious than those of the Kohima battle. All the Japanese commander had to do was to leave a detachment to mask Kohima, and, with the rest of his division, thrust violently on Dimapur. He could hardly fail to take it. Luckily, Major-General Sato, commander of the Japanese 31st Division, was, without exception, the most unenterprising of all the Japanese generals I encountered. He had been ordered to take Kohima and dig in. His bullet head was f
illed with one idea only—to take Kohima. It never struck him that he could inflict terrible damage on us without taking Kohima at all. Leaving a small force to contain it, and moving by tracks to the east of Warren’s brigade at Nichugard, he could, by the 5th April, have struck the railway with the bulk of his division. But he had no vision, so, as his troops came up, he flung them into attack after attack on the little town of Kohima. I have said I was saved from the gravest effects of my mistake in underestimating the enemy’s capacity to penetrate to Kohima by the stubborn valour of my troops; but it needed the stupidity of the local enemy commander to make quite sure. Unfortunately, at the time, I did not know this was to be supplied, or I should have been saved much anxiety. Later, when it was evident, I once found some enthusiastic Royal Air Force officers planning an air strike on Sato’s headquarters. They were astonished when I suggested they should abandon the project as I regarded their intended victim as one of my most helpful generals! But the time to indulge in such frivolities was not yet.

  Lieut.-General Montague Stopford, commander of 33 Indian Corps, with some of his staff, had reached my headquarters at Comilla on 23rd March. I knew him and had every confidence in him as a commander, but his corps headquarters had not previously operated and, indeed, had done little training. They would have to shake down and gain experience as they fought—never an easy thing to do. The success and speed with which they overcame their teething troubles were a measure of their ability and their commander’s leadership.

  I had at first considered Silchar as the location for 33 Corps Headquarters. It was central, had certain advantages in approach to Imphal and in communications; but the unexpected seriousness of the threat to Dimapur made it imperative to get not only the bulk of the reinforcements but Corps Headquarters also into that area. I also decided that Kohima at this stage must have priority over Imphal. Stopford himself urged this and I agreed with him. I gave Stopford as his objects:

  1. To prevent Japanese penetration into the Brahmaputra or Surma Valleys or through the Lushai Hills.

  2. To keep open the Dimapur-Kohima-Imphal road.

  3. To move to the help of 4 Corps and to co-operate with it in the destruction of all enemy west of the Chindwin.

  These tasks were not changed throughout the battle, and remained the overall directive for 33 Corps. I gave him tactical freedom in the methods he chose to carry them out, and he, therefore, deserves the credit for accomplishing them.

  On the 3rd April, Stopford arrived at Jorhat on the Assam railway, some sixty-five miles north-north-east of Dimapur, and established his headquarters there. Next day he took over control of operations from Ranking. In the ten days that had passed since Stopford had received his original orders the Kohima situation had developed, but not, alas, to our advantage, and I decided that his immediate tasks had now become:

  (i) To cover the concentration of his corps as far forward as practicable.

  (ii) To secure the Dimapur base.

  (iii) To reinforce and hold Kohima.

  (iv) To protect, as far as possible without jeopardizing (i) to (iii), the Assam railway and the China route airfields in the Brahmaputra Valley.

  The 33 Corps plan to achieve these ends was:

  (a) To concentrate the corps as it arrived north-east of Dimapur. This would avoid its becoming immediately involved in an enemy attack on the base and would place it advantageously to deliver a counter-stroke. It would also automatically protect the railway to Ledo.

  (b) To send forward the first brigade of the 2nd Division as soon as it arrived to hold the Nichugard Pass, eight miles south-east of Dimapur, thus covering the base against a direct Japanese advance.

  (c) To reinforce Kohima with 161 Brigade of the 5th Indian Division at once.

  (d) To use 23 Brigade (Chindits), expected about the 12th April, to strike south on Kohima and to the east of it, with the double object of checking Japanese infiltration towards the railway and of cutting the enemy line of communication to the Chindwin.

  (e) To cover the western end of the Silchar-Bishenpur track with another Nepalese battalion which I had made available until the arrival of 3 Special Service Brigade.

  (f) To continue to use the newly formed Lushai Brigade to prevent an enemy advance into the Lushai Hills.

  Wasting no time, on the evening of the 4th April, Stopford ordered 161 Brigade to move again to Kohima. It left Nichugard the next day, and its leading unit, the 4th Battalion, The Royal West Kent Regiment, joined the garrison late the same day, just after the first Japanese night attack had overrun some of our positions. The rest of the brigade, warned of the congestion in Kohima, halted and dug in for the night. Early on the morning of the 6th, a company of Rajputs got into Kohima and one platoon of it brought out two hundred walking wounded and non-combatants. During the morning, however, the Japanese closed round the town, and the brigade was unable to gain the ridge. The road behind was soon afterwards cut by a strong enemy detachment who established a block between the brigade and Dimapur. The situation at Kohima was thus: its garrison of about three thousand men closely invested by superior forces, 161 Brigade cut off five miles to the north, a detachment holding the Nichugard defile south-east of Dimapur, and the base itself in no state to resist a serious attack. A decidedly unpleasant situation, but there were not wanting more hopeful signs.

  At the end of March, the 2nd British Division had been dispersed in training in Southern India. Such was the rapidity of its move, carried out by the Movement Staffs of G.H.Q. India and of General Giffard’s headquarters, that on the 2nd April its leading elements were arriving at Dimapur, two brigades and the Divisional Headquarters were on the way by air, and one brigade by rail. A regiment of tanks and later 268 Indian Motorized Brigade were also thrown in for good measure by General Auchinleck.

  As I shuttled between Dimapur, Imphal, and my headquarters at Comilla, I was beginning to see light. We had hard days ahead of us, but everywhere our troops, unperturbed by events, were steady and full of fight. We had lost nothing vital.

  CHAPTER XV

  ATTRITION

  ON the Assam front the first week of April had been an anxious one. Thanks to my mistakes the battle had not started well; at any time crisis might have slipped into disaster—and still might. We were in tactical difficulties everywhere. The Japanese were pressing hard on the rim of the Imphal plain; they still threatened the Dimapur base, while the Kohima garrison was in dire peril; and they had cut the Kohima-Imphal road, which was certainly no part of my plan. Yet for their gains they had paid a higher price in dead and wounded, and, above all, in time, than they had calculated on in their plan. Now our air forces, tireless and bold, dominated the skies. Under their wings our reinforcements were flowing in more smoothly and rapidly than I had hoped. As I watched the little flags, representing divisions, cluster round Imphal and Kohima on my situation map, I heaved a sigh of relief. As the second week of April wore on, for all its alarms and fears I felt that our original pattern for the battle was reasserting itself.

  In my visits to formations I tried to impart this feeling, and I found it shared by commanders and troops. By the beginning of April when the 5th Indian Division, less the brigade sent to Dimapur, had arrived, Scoones at Imphal would have the best part of four divisions, and under his steady leadership I was confident the tide would turn. It was on the Kohima side of the picture that I looked the more anxiously. Here it would take all Stopford’s energy and optimism to right the battle. Not only were the defenders of Kohima in desperate case, but it was still open to the Japanese 31st Division to sidestep them and go for Dimapur. I therefore decided that the Kohima battle should have preference over that at Imphal for reinforcements, supplies, ammunition, indeed for anything 33 Corps required, and that even at the cost of skimping Scoones I must nourish Stopford. Luckily Sato continued to limit himself to frontal attacks on Kohima, first by day and then, as the toll exacted by the garrison and by the swift retaliation of our aircraft in daylight proved too high even fo
r Japanese stomachs, by night. Throughout the day and in the intervals between these night attacks, the enemy artillery, mortars, and machine-guns hammered relentlessly at our positions on Garrison Hill. British and Japanese trenches were within yards of one another, every move brought a shot, rest was impossible. Sheer exhaustion rather than the enemy threatened to vanquish our men. Then came the worst blow of all. During the night of the 5th/6th April the Japanese gained possession of the water supply, and thirst was added to the other horrors. The R.A.F., regardless of fire from the ground, swept over at tree-top level to drop motor-car inner tubes filled with water. By good fortune a small spring was found inside our lines, yet, even with this to supplement the air force contribution, the water ration dropped to less than a pint a man and a little more for the wounded. Gradually the area we held was squeezed until, from a rough square with sides of a thousand yards, it became a meagre five hundred by five hundred. Into this confined space the enemy rained down a pitiless bombardment; against its haggard, thirsty garrison they hurled attack after attack.

  But help was at hand. By the 11th April, headquarters and two brigades of the 2nd Division had reached Dimapur; the third was following close behind, and next day the Chindit 23 Brigade arrived at Jorhat. We had thus drawn about level with the Japanese in numbers, and, as soon as the 7th Indian Division, now under orders from Arakan, could be got in we would be on the way to superiority.