India's War

by Srinath Raghavan

  Infiltration was easier said than done. The problems were amply highlighted by the 5th Division’s own attempt to push through the main Japanese defences along the Maungdaw–Buthidaung line. Breaking through this line entailed the clearing of a formidable defensive fortress at Razabil – a self-contained warren of mutually supporting bunkers set on a ring of jungle-covered hillocks. On 26 January 1944, the 161st Indian Infantry Brigade began its assault on Razabil. As the divisional historian laconically remarks, the operation was ‘at once the most ambitious conception and most complete failure’.4

  The attack opened with a spectacular bombing of the enemy’s positions by dive-bombers and medium guns. The ground attack, led by 4/7th Rajput and supported by a squadron of medium tanks, initially made headway. As the tanks sought to suppress the defenders by fire, the assaulting infantry moved up to the Japanese bunkers. Co-ordination between tanks and infantry proved less than perfect, however. By the time the tanks lifted their fire the Rajputs were several yards short of the enemy defences. The Japanese bunkers erupted into action. Machine-gun fire and mortars rained down on the Indians from entirely unexpected directions, including the reverse slopes of the hills. Tanks were unable to move much in this terrain and the attack proved abortive. Successive attempts over the next three days failed to dislodge the Japanese from Razabil. Faced with mounting casualties, the operation was called off on 30 January.

  Razabil provided a costly reminder of the need to avoid frontal assaults wherever possible. But it also showed that the alternative of infiltration was not easily adopted in all contexts. The 15th Corps did not, however, have the luxury of time to mull these lessons. For the Japanese counter-offensive was not long in coming.

  The commander of the Japanese Fifteenth Army in northern Burma, Lieutenant General Mutaguchi Renya, had been raring to take the fight to India. An extreme nationalist and militarist, Mutaguchi had commanded a division that captured Singapore in 1942. His record, however, stretched right back to the start of Japan’s Asian war, and it gave Mutaguchi a messianic sense of his own role in the manifest destiny of his country. As he confided to his diary in late 1943:

  I started off the Marco Polo Incident which broadened out into the China Incident and then expanded until it turned into the great East Asian War. If I push into India now, by my own efforts and can exercise a decisive influence on the Great East Asian War, I, who was the remote cause of the outbreak of this great war, will have justified myself in the eyes of our nation.5

  Mutaguchi’s colleagues and subordinates, however, had deep reservations about his plan. As one of them brusquely told him, ‘It would no doubt satisfy you to go to Imphal and die there. But Japan might be overthrown in the process.’6 It took several months of operational planning and war-gaming before they reluctantly came around. The strategic assumption underpinning Mutaguchi’s plan was not wholly off-beam. The operations in the Arakan earlier that year had shown up the Indian army as a friable force. A rapid thrust into India could not only deal a decisive blow to the enemy, but also enlarge and secure the perimeter of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. They could then credibly threaten to knock out India and China, and so convince the Americans to come to terms with Japan.

  Mutaguchi’s efforts to persuade his superiors, especially Premier Tojo and the emperor, were supported from an unexpected quarter. By late 1943, Subhas Bose’s efforts to raise a second INA were rapidly progressing. His force of 40,000 men and women was impressive – at least on paper, and he urged the Japanese to mount an advance into India with the INA in the vanguard. The mere appearance of his troops, Bose argued, would catalyse a major uprising in Bengal and other parts of India. The only requirement of ‘ultimate success’, he claimed, was that ‘action within the country must synchronize with the action from without’.7 In the context of the Quit India upheaval and the Bengal famine, Bose’s plan seemed plausible.

  The Allied operations in the Arakan tilted the balance in favour of Mutaguchi’s plans, and on 7 January 1944 Tokyo gave him the go-ahead: ‘For the defence of Burma, the Commander-in-Chief Southern Army shall destroy the enemy on that front at the appropriate juncture and occupy and secure a strategic zone in North-East India in the area of Imphal.’8 Mutaguchi’s main offensive, codenamed Operation U-Go, was directed towards the Imphal Plain in Assam. His plan was ‘to secure that area in order to establish permanent occupation’.9

  The Japanese counter-attack in the Arakan was intended as a subsidiary thrust. On the night of 3 February, they launched Operation Ha-Go. The attack was aimed at stopping and destroying the 5th and 7th Indian Divisions along the Mayu Ridge. The Japanese hoped to repeat the pattern of operations hitherto employed with great aplomb: a speedy advance along several columns to infiltrate, surround and attack the isolated enemy positions. The Indian formations were expected to attempt a withdrawal – whereupon the Japanese would use roadblocks and ambushes to destroy them piecemeal.

  The attack initially worked to plan. Four battalions of the Japanese 55th Infantry Group, supported by artillery, tore through the defended localities and gaps of the 114th Indian Infantry Brigade. By 0900 hours on the morning of 4 February, the Japanese, supported by their fighters and bombers, stood a dozen miles north of Buthidaung poised to cross the river and move south. Thereafter the 7th Division’s position grew progressively precarious. A determined counter-attack by the 89th Indian Infantry Brigade failed to stem the tide. On the morning of 6 February, Japanese troops overran the divisional headquarters, though Messervy and his staff managed to elude the dragnet.

  Despite deploying the army reserve, the 26th Division, Christison and Slim were unable to prevent the total encirclement of the 7th Division. Instead of withdrawing, however, the division operated according to the new doctrine: adopting all-round defensive ‘boxes’ and switching to half-rations. Once the Japanese offensive resumed, the Fourteenth Army mounted a valiant logistical effort to get supplies to the ‘boxes’. The animal transport companies brought up replenishments in the face of Japanese machine-gun fire. The rudimentary air supply units were also pressed into service. After air superiority over the Japanese was regained, the volume of air drops was steadily increased. In five weeks Allied transport aircraft flew over 700 sorties, dropping rations, ammunition and other supplies into the ‘boxes’.10 The air drops were a new experience for most men on the ground as well. Young Indian soldiers became ‘wildly excited and rushed about clapping their hands at the sight of small parachutes, opening in mid-air, gently gliding down with the more breakable type of packages’. The boom-and-thud of Japanese guns served as a reminder of the war, however.11

  The Japanese threw their main effort at a hastily prepared position covering the Corps Administrative Base at Sinzweya. Although the ‘Admin Box’ was well stocked with supplies, it was manned by an assortment of non-combatant troops from supply and administrative units. The flat terrain ringed by hills also favoured the attacker. The corps commander ordered Brigadier Geoffrey Evans of the 9th Indian Infantry Brigade to take charge of the area: ‘Put it into a state of defence and hold it at all costs.’ Evans’s order to his subordinates was equally terse: ‘Your job is to stay put and keep the Japanese out.’12 Bolstered by a battalion of Gurkhas, some companies of the West Yorkshires as well as two tank squadrons, the defenders gave a good account of themselves in the ‘Battle of the Box’. Notwithstanding repeated and intense attacks by the Japanese resulting in mounting casualties and exhaustion, the 7th Division stood its ground. As a senior officer put it: ‘We’ve learned now to fight where we stand and NOT to be frightened by the bogey of infiltration.’13

  Even as the Japanese hurled themselves at these ‘boxes’, the 26th Division advanced into the Kalapanzin Valley, recaptured lost positions, and moved south to relieve the pressure on the 7th Division. Meanwhile, on the western side of the Mayu Ridge, the 5th Division launched a ferocious assault, destroying the Japanese forces almost entirely. As the 15th Corps began closing its maw, the beleaguered Japanese launched
ever more desperate attacks on the box defences. The 2/13th Frontier Force was among the battalions that endured successive waves of Japanese assault. As one officer wrote:

  Crouching in our shallow fox-holes, it was an eerie feeling hearing the first boom of a mortar discharge, seeing the trace of a thin line of light as ignition commenced, and wondering over which exact spot the delicate red stars would break out. Then down underneath where they had been blossoming would thunder the shattering crump of heavy Jap mortar shells. The night would be lit up by the criss-cross of clouds of tracer bullets being poured on us from all sides. Hand-grenades bursting amongst our positions showed how close, in some cases, the enemy were able to creep up unseen. In grim silence, every man, including clerks and followers, pumped back his answering fire … The crescendo of noise would increase to a roar as the assaults came close in, to die away as each attack was broken off.14

  Eventually, having lost as many as 5,000 men, the Japanese commander ordered a general retreat on 24 February.

  Ten days later, the 15th Corps was yet again on the offensive in the Arakan. The retreating Japanese staged a stunning recovery and put up staunch resistance. Yet the momentum was now with the other side. By the end of March 1944, the 7th Division had captured Buthidaung. More impressive was the 5th Division’s demonstration of operational flexibility. On 9 March, the division launched another operation to seize Razabil. Unlike the earlier attempts, the division now resorted to brigade-level infiltration and envelopment. Even as the 123rd Indian Infantry Brigade feigned a frontal attack, the 161st Brigade penetrated unopposed through the Japanese positions at night and reached the rear of Razabil by first light. The fortress was then taken by the 123rd Brigade, leaving the 161st to capture another important section of the Japanese line.15

  The night before Razabil fell, the Japanese launched their main offensive towards Imphal. Mutaguchi had planned a four-pronged attack. The 33rd Division would smash the 17th Indian Division in the Chin Hills and head south along the Tiddim Road towards Imphal. A brigade-sized all-arms force – the Yamamoto Group – would advance through the Kabaw Valley, roll-up the 20th Indian Division and attack the airfields at Palel on the edge of the Imphal Plain. The 15th Division would cut west through the Naga Hills and sever the road link between Imphal and Dimapur before turning south on Imphal. Lastly, the 31st Division would also advance through the Naga Hills, capture the hill town of Kohima and help mop-up Imphal and Dimapur.

  Apart from these three infantry divisions, Mutaguchi had the 1st INA Division – in all about 100,000 troops. Yet he was weaker than his adversary both numerically and logistically. Most importantly, he had no hope of gaining air superiority – a crucial determinant of Japanese victories in Burma in 1942. Mutaguchi hoped to surmount these handicaps by bold and aggressive planning as well as surprise and speed in execution. Indeed, he expected the campaign to end in three weeks.

  The Fourteenth Army, however, was broadly aware of the Japanese intentions – thanks to documents captured by their patrols and intelligence provided by the locals. Both the commander of the 4th Corps, Lieutenant General Geoffrey Scoones, and Slim felt that in the event of a Japanese attack, the forward divisions should be pulled back to the Imphal Plain. Although a withdrawal might impair morale ahead of crucial battles, the logistical advantages of concentrating on the defence of Imphal were considerable. As Slim put it: ‘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.’16 Apart from the three Indian divisions of the 4th Corps – the 17th, 20th and 23rd – Slim planned to move in, if necessary, reserves from other fronts by airlift. This force, backed by ample guns, tanks and air power, would pummel the Japanese on the plain of Imphal.

  Operation U-Go began on the night of 7–8 March 1944. The 33rd Division achieved tactical surprise and nearly managed to envelop and attack the 17th Indian Division. Part of the reason for this initial success was the delay in the division’s planned withdrawal along the Tiddim Road towards Imphal. Once the division regained its poise, the practised Japanese tactics of infiltration and encirclement failed to work. The divisional commander’s orders were short and snappy: ‘Forget those bloody Japs and keep your eye on the ball.’17 His troops managed both to blast the roadblocks hastily erected by the enemy and to effectively delay the pursuing Japanese. Throughout the 160-mile withdrawal to Imphal, the division’s fighting power was sustained by rations and ammunition supplied by air. On 4 April, the 17th Division reached the Imphal Plain. Despite sustaining heavy casualties, the division was ready for operations after a brief rest and reorganization.

  Meanwhile, the central front of the 4th Corps was reinforced by airlifting the 5th Indian Division from the Arakan. This was one of the most experienced Indian divisions: it had fought in North and East Africa and served in Cyprus and Iraq before moving to the Burma front. Yet the division had had no training as an airborne force. Initially the plan was to move the troops, vehicles and animals by barge, road and rail over some 800 miles. The Japanese offensive towards Imphal threw the plan off kilter. The Air Transport Command and the US Army Air Force were called in to convert the planned eight-day trek into an aerial hop of less than two hours. Troops were pulled out of battle and sent on a long and dusty journey to the airfield. Even mules were taken by rafts and trucks to reach the zone in time. Within three days the first units were emplaning. The operation was hurriedly improvised. As the divisional logistics officer wrote:

  To stand on the airfield was reminiscent of standing on the kerb in Piccadilly or Oxford St. in pre-war days calling for a taxi … Every few moments a plane was landing or taking off – everything was very informal and within a matter of minutes wounded were unloaded from planes, mules, jeeps and personnel were loaded, planes refuelled, the doors closed, and the plane was off on another journey.

  The Indian troops were awestruck at these encounters with aircraft:

  Once on board they [Indian troops] passed the time gazing at the panorama below, excitedly pointing out features which, by their size or shape, attracted their attention. Some, completely unperturbed, discussed the battles they had just left and the prospect of the battles to which they were flying. One or two even slept.18

  By the end of March, two brigades of the 5th Indian Division were deployed near Imphal to halt the Japanese 15th Division’s march across the Naga Hills via Ukhrul. Although the leading units of the 5th Division managed to slow the advance, the Japanese switched direction and cut the Imphal–Dimapur road at Kangpokpi. Thereafter, they took control of key features overlooking the headquarters of the 4th Corps on the plain of Imphal.

  The 20th Indian Division was struck by the vanguard of the Yamamoto Group on 12 March. The opening attack was blunted by the Indian units. Having tasted success, the divisional commander, Major General Douglas Gracey, was loath to withdraw. He wrote to the corps commander:

  Our morale is sky high, as we have beaten the enemy and given him a real bloody nose everywhere. Everyone is prepared to hang on where they are now like grim death. It is their Verdun. It will be most shattering to morale if they are now asked to assist in the Imphal Plain and they will feel someone has let them down.19

  In the event, the division pulled back to prepared positions overlooking the Imphal–Sittaung road. While doing so, it also tore up the supply depot at Moreh. Even the 200 head of cattle held in the depot were put to the knife. Thus the Japanese were the denied the ‘Churchill rations’ on which they had hoped to survive.

  The most serious threat to the Fourteenth Army, however, came from the Japanese 31st Division. Slim had miscalculated his adversary’s capability. Kohima was nestled in a series of formidable, trackless ridges running at over 7,000 feet, and Slim reasonably assumed that Mutaguchi would throw only a brigade at the town. As the scale of the offensive on Kohima became clear, the Allies scrambled to organize an effective defence. The 33rd Indian Corps was pulled out of reserve in India and
tasked with reopening the Imphal–Kohima road and linking up with the 4th Corps. In the meantime, a motley garrison force of 2,500 men was cobbled together for the defence of the town.

  On 4 April, the Japanese began attacking. Two days later, they cut the water supply, so forcing the garrison to rely on air supplies of water as well as rations and ammunition. By this time, formations of the 33rd Corps – now headquartered at Jorhat – began to operate on the Dimapur–Imphal road. The 33rd Corps was not particularly well suited for the task at hand: its training and preparation were for combined operations. For instance, its leading division – the 2nd British – was heavily mechanized and despite two months of training in jungle warfare was largely unprepared for fighting in Assam. Nevertheless, the division managed to clear the Japanese roadblocks and relieve the Kohima garrison on 18 April.20

  The battle for Kohima continued for over six weeks. The Japanese defences on the hills overlooking the town proved extremely difficult to crack. The tactics of large-scale infiltration and encirclement adopted in Razabil were difficult to pull off in Kohima, and the 33rd Corps was forced to rely on a succession of heavy set-piece attacks backed by massive artillery fire and air power. In the event, the Japanese 31st Division’s strength began to sap, owing to problems of supply and reinforcements. Conversely, the 33rd Corps’ fighting power was augmented by the arrival in mid-May of the battle-hardened 7th Indian Division from Arakan. Once the Indian formations started pushing back the weakened Japanese posts, they also managed to outflank the enemy and snip his lines of supply. From the first week of June, the Japanese began slipping away. The Kohima they left behind, noted Slim, was ‘a cross between Delville Wood on the Somme and Keren; the whole place is a mass of splintered trees, shell craters, a honeycomb of trenches and dugouts, spread over precipitous, broken hills, 5000 ft high’.21