BATTLE OF KOHIMA

 

No war could be valourised, without of course its armies. And no armies are half as prescient without the few men who wage it, first in the mind and latter in the thick of battle. More than a century before the fog of war descended on Kohima, in 1826 the Treaty of Yandaboo gave imperial Great Britain the sovereign rights over Assam, and by extension the Naga Hills. Britain and its armies variously called Cachar Levy (1835), Jorhat Militia (1838) and Frontier Police (1881) staged localised battles with the warlike Nagas, without much success. The indomitable spirit of the Nagas and the difficult terrain, stood between the imperial designs. British Army was not pressed into service in the Naga Hills as the Levies were less paid and did not dig a hole in the exchequer. The arrangement of poorly paid soldiers took up stocades at Samaguting and Lotha Hills foothills before Kohima could be taken.

The British officer in charge of Cachar Levy was Grange who was billeted at Nagaon and took punitive raids on Naga raids on the tea gardens dotting the Barak valley. The Jorhat Militia were comprised of men of the Shan races who surrendered to the British at the conclusion of First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824, after their ineffective fight to stave off the British from taking Jorhat. By 1863, the Nagaon base for Naga operations was expanded as Nowgong Frontier Police came into being and Major John Butler arrived in the scene. The lump of Cachar Levy and Jorhat Militia amalgamated into the Frontier Police.

As incursions of the imperial British increased into Naga Hills in 1872 Naga Hills Frontier Police was detached from the  Nagaon branch of Frontier activities, headquartered at Samaguting (present day Chümoukedima near Dimapur, Nagaland) under the command of Captain Butler, the son of Maj John Butler. Civil Police was introduced from 1860s in Assam and used for protection of jails and treasuries. The Police Act of 1861 started the concept of Constabulary much on the lines of Peel's Constabulary of London, and all the Levies and Militias are absorbed in the respective police districts. The division of Civil Police and Frontier Police were clear cut delineation of law and order and frontier forward operations respectively. The Frontier Police were modelled in the British Army in drill and discipline. They were using Snider Rifles of .557 calibre. By 1888 the next generation Martini-Henry Rifles was replaced by Lee-Metford Rifles.

In 1874, politically Assam was made a separate Province, under a Chief Commissioner and Angami Country was taken over by Captain Butler from his Samaguting base. A new direction from Fort William Calcutta in 1878 saw Damant moving to Kohima as a Political Officer. A series of raids beginning Grange's expedition from 1839 till Captain Butler's in 1874 culminated the subjugation of the Angamis, with forces of Naga Hills Frontier Police (NHFP). No regular British Army was utilised for Naga Hills operations uptill then. The British utilised Assam Light Infantry (ALI) raised in 1827 and 2nd ALI raised in Guwahati and later moved to Sadiya to be known as Assam Sebundry Corps (Irregulars), and subsequently in 1864 as 43rd Bengal Infantry (Assam) and finally two years later as 2/8 Gorkha Rifles. With the occupation of Naga Hills with Damant at the helm the NHFP took gaurd and the Regular Units of British Army were stationed at Guwahati (42nd), Shillong (43rd) and Dibrugarh (44th) Assam Light Infantry.

In Silchar, the Bengal Regiment is headquartered. Naga Hills was not an easy place to govern but Captain Butler could bring in a semblance of order after his initial forays into Kohima. But luck was not in Captain Butler's side in Wokha where after setting up a  functional administrative setup and a fortified position in 1875, he was ambushed and killed. Things are sharply turning worse for Damant as well in Kohima with Captain Butler's death the Angamis have different plans up their sleeve. They attacked the British in Mazema in 1877 promoting Fort William to move in 43rd Bengal Infantry with NHFP holding lower reaches of Kohima ridge upto Dimapur.

In 1879 the four British Indian Regiments stationed in Assam had 32 elephants attached to them, but none was transferred to the Naga Hills. The British took it nonchalantly, business as usual in Naga Hills, for which they would pay dearly. In 13 October 1879, Damant, Cawley and two hundred and forty upwards men, with insufficient arms, half disguised as a peace mission moved up to Jotsoma and Khonoma. The volley of fire from stocaded positions left Damant dead with 25 Frontier policemen and 10 troopers of 43rdBengal Regiment falling to the hail of bullets. The news of the catastrophe reached the British Viceroy in Calcutta. A pall of gloom descended over the whole of North East at the first major debacle of the British arms since the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.

Burma: The Japanese invasion of 1942

The Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885 replaced the rule of Thibaw, the Burmese monarch with British rule as the IndoBurma frontier collapsed. In 1891 British occupied Manipur and regular movement of troops and people from either side started. In Oct-Nov 1941 Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brook-Popham, the Commander-in-Chief of British Far Eastern Command placed put most of the Burma Division (British Army in Burma) in the Shan Hills, as he anticipated that the Japanese invasion would come from Siam from the North, keeping a Brigade level strength along Burma's border with Malaya. After staging the Pearl Harbour attack on 7 December 1941 Japanese quickly took the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Malaya. 

On Christmas Day Japanese troops entered Siam. Two days before Siam fell, Japanese air force bombed Rangoon for the first time. And as the New Year arrived by January middle the Burmese coastal towns of Mergui and Tavoy were lost and the Japanese when the second week came the shocking news of the fall of Singapore. A fortnight later in February Japanese Div (33rd and 55th) seized Moulmein, third biggest Burmese town and peering over the banks of Salween towards Rangoon. Another twenty odd days British blew up the bridge over Sittang, hundred miles east of Rangoon. By early March Mandalay the second largest Burmese town in Central Burma was bombed, the eastern hills of Maymyo fell from where the British Governor Dorman Smith was airlifted hours before it fell. Refugees are pouring into India from across Manipur and Assam, crossing the 4000 ft high Pangsau Pass or the ill fated Diphu Pass up North with its snow tipped ranges at over ten thousand feet.

By the spring of 1942 the Japanese conquest of Burma was complete and the ethnic Burmese leaders drafted by the Japanese into Burma Independence Army (BIA). The hill tribes like the Christian Karen and Kachins stood firmly behind the British. BIA in reprisal for anything anti-Japanese killed the Karen leader Saw PeTha and his Scottish wife and their children. The main Japanese invasion came through the Kraishtmus, the narrow land bridge that connects the Malaya peninsula to Burma and rest of South-East Asia. Towards the end of April the British Army got orders to take the long road to India. British rule in Burma had collapsed. The 17th Indian Division retreated 1,000 miles in its retreat from Sittang and reached Kalewa on 15th March, 1942 and then deployed along the Assam-Manipur border. The Eastern Army of the British were responsible for the defence of NorthEast comprises of 4th and 15th Corps with Lt Gen NMS Irwin in charge of 4th Corps with responsibility for the defence of Assam and Naga Hills.

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 hun dred 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 Rank ing 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.