Part 2
Satyaraj Hazarika, IPS
Deputy Inspector General of Police, Assam
All roads lead to Kohima: 1944
By November 1943 the South East Asian Command (SEAC) started to function under Admiral Louis Mountbatten. It controlled the 11th Army Group which in turn controls the 14th Army under Gen Slim, who is tasked to stem the tide of the Japanese invasion of India, with its main battle aim-Imphal and Kohima. The 14th Army held Kohima lightly, as its main battle groups (15 Corps) in Arakan, Imphal (4 Corps) and a Reserve Coprs (33rd). On 15th March 1944, the Japanese Imperial Army crossed the Chindwin River in Burma. Maj Gen Sato Kototu’s orders to his troops of 31st Div is to take Kohima. While the other two Divisions comprising the Japanese 15th Army (33rd and 15th Div) was to push back the 17th Indian Div from Tiddim (the road enters into Manipur's Churachandpur district) and take Imphal.
The darkness of the DC bunglow Kohima that night, dimmed by the fog of war, where the incumbent Charles Pawsey lay between an imperial dreams that was shattered by the news of the Japanese invasion. The Japanese Regiments earmarked for Kohima an approximately thirteen thousand troops (58th, 124th and 138) whose 58th would take Jessami track, the 138th through Maram and Pulomi, while the 124th pincers move to take Kohima. Lt Gen Mutaguchi of the Japanese 15th Army next up the command chain was the Commander-in-Chief Kawabe who in his turn reports to Field Marshal Yarauchi, the Supreme Commander of South East Asia campaign of Japan. Tracing the movements from the copious intelligence reports the 14th Army Commander Gen Slim was perturbed. His 14th Army now referred as-the Forgotten 14th, partly because it was made up of those Divisions that are badly mauled by the Japanese.
Kohima garrisons lead force was the Assam Regiment, minus Company (100 men) strength that left by first April 1944 thirty miles east and covering troops of Assam Rifles ahead of Kohima, in delaying positions. This barely makes upto five hundred men with a raw Nepalis Battalion. The rest of the total force of thousand men are mostly non-combatants under the Command of Colonel Richards. The Naga Hills Military Police Battalion (NHMP) was created in 1890 that got rechristened as Assam Rifles in 1917.The NHMP became the 3rd Assam Rifles (AR) stationed at Kohima.
The troops of 1 Assam Regiment trained in Assam Regimental Centre, Shillong the nucleus of the force came from five hundred odd troops of AR which will be the fighting force to save Kohima. During the WWI NHMP served in Gorkha Regiments of the British Indian Army and saw active service in France, Egypt, Gallipolli and Mesapotamia along with the Naga Labour Corps.
As 500 Naga soldiers launched themselves into battle against 13,000 battle hardened Japanese troops it became a fight for their homeland. Gen Slim could not change the Kohima disposition but he found a new Commander Maj Gen Ranking for the Kohima theatre. In an unrelated incident, in far away Bombay dozens of fit men with stubble landed in early 1944 and headed to the British Indian Infantry School. These men belonged to the No 5 and No 42 Commando Unit of the British Army led by Lt Gen Christianson, which by Dec end 1943 launched itself in the Arakan towns of Maungdaw and Buthidaung. It signaled the operations of the first British Commando unit inside Burma, the Chindits developed for counter-attack inside Burma in early 1944 battled behind enemy lines during the Kohima War. The British war gaming on Lt Gen Mutaguchi's 15th Army was hinged on Dimapur as the main objective of the war. They gamed in on that Maj Gen Sato's troops will skirt Kohima and make a dash for Dimapur. But by 3rd April infiltrating Japanese troops of the 58th are probing the Jessami defence via Somra tract (Ukhrul dist of Manipur) and the 60th cutting the Imphhal-Kohima road, putting the Kohima operations beyond doubt. And the 4th Corps GOC Scoones at Imphal, whose control extends to Kohima, realised that Kohima will be a separate theatre. On the last days of March, Gen Ranking got 161 Brigade whose Commander Warren made its first contact with forward elements of troops of Japanese 31st Div, south of Kohima ridge. From the 29th March to 3rd April Assam Regiment and 161 Brigade fought against all odds, the Naga troops fighting for their homes and kin delayed the Japanese campaign that turned to be the game changer. When the Kohima seige began on 4th April GOC of hurriedly formed 33 Corps Lt Montague Stofford arriving in Jorhat a day earlier took over charge of Kohima theatre from 4thCorps. Next day when the siege began Gen Stofford assumed charge of Kohima and redirected Brigadier Warren to re-enter Kohima from Nichugard Pass leading to Dimapur.
Siege of Kohima:
On the intervening night of 5/6th April Japanese troops took control of the water supply of Kohima, which could only be rectified as C-47 Dakotas flew overhead to drop water in lorry tyres. 2nd British Div which had began to arrive from 2nd April at Dimapur began to take the narrow Dimapur-Kohima road already under heavy Japanese cut offs. Blowing their way through the Japanese resistance on 15th April eleven days of the siege the British troops could join with 161 Brigade that was fighting a grim battle to cut off the encircling Japanese assaults. The next Brigade that came up the Kohima ridge the 6th Brigade could relieve the 161. The British could only hope to attack from the north side of the Kohima ridge. A torturous track running down the middle of the spine goes to Dimapur, 50 odd kms in the plains of Assam. The action is on the east of Kohima where the Naga village, Treasury Ridge, FSD (Field Service Depot) DCs bunglow, Kuki piquet all lie. To the west lies the GPT, Jail Hill and Command Post ridge .On 21st April the 5th Brigade climbed 2000ft and attacked Japanese positions due north of Kohima. On the West 4th Brigade attacked Jail Hill and GPT ridge on 4th May.
Meanwhile the ill-fated and logistical nightmares are creeping up, as the Japanese siege entered its 30thday and starvation is staring at the invading troops. By 19th May 5thBrigade could occupy the Naga village after the DCs bunglow was taken two days back as the Japanese invasion was struck by a change of fortunes in favour of the British and Indian troops. Garrison Hill, on a long and high wooden ridge west of the Naga village saw the fiercest battle of the Kohima front in the initial days of the campaign, followed by tennis court battle, in the DCs bunglow. Grenades were lobbed instead of tennis ball as arms length fighting took place.
The honours of the Kohima War that saw the eventual retreat of the Japanese troops from 16th of May until 22nd June goes to the fighting spirit of 1 Assam Regiment that fought like there is no tomorrow. Raised on 15th June 1941 it delayed the Japanese advance for 5th Brigade of 2nd British Div to come up to defend Kohima. The Naga soldiers fought for their loved ones and made life tougher for the invaders, who are expert jungle fighters. In 2013, it was voted as Britain greatest battle in a debate at the National Army Museum in London, ahead of the Normandy landing and Waterloo. The contribution of Naga soldiers, civilians as partisans of British, as V Force operatives of its intelligence provided the crucial back up of this successful war. The war was more a battle of the Nagas, from being fiercely independent they ushered in their own struggle for freedom by the defeat of the anti-colonial forces.
Concluded
