Kohima

by Arthur Swinson

  But there was no peace in Assam; and by 1924 no less than fifty-two punitive expeditions or campaigns had been launched. In one of them, the Lushai Expedition of 1871, the chief staff officer was Colonel F. Roberts, later to become the famous ‘Bobs’, Commander-in-Chief India. He was the first soldier of any eminence to take the field in Assam, and his writings leave no doubt as to what he thought of it. Ambushes were frequent and casualties high, and even the elephants fell down, exhausted. ‘Every bit of road had to be cut and cleared, entailing endless labour, while in addition, much bridging work had to be carried out.’ Even a British officer carried a load of 80 lbs. on his back; and the coolies started going down with cholera, even before the expedition had left its base. Later and more highly equipped expeditions proved just as uncomfortable.

  According to their own legends, the Angami Nagas, who have a large village on the northern slopes of Kohima, emerged from the bowels of the earth in some land to the south. Anthropologists aren’t so certain, some relating them to the head-hunters of Malaya, others to the Polynesians, and a few to the hill races of China. Undoubtedly they worked their way up Assam from the south, but when the migration took place and how long it lasted, it is impossible to say. Travellers and others living among them for long periods have often noticed their fancy for marine shells, and there is little doubt that they have strong cultural affinities to the natives of Borneo and the Philippines. Some people would say they have physical affinities too. The Naga languages have been studied by numerous philologists and with varying results; but it appears that the classification arrived at by Sir George Grierson in 1911 has obtained fairly general acceptance. He considers that the Angami Naga is of the Tibeto-Chinese family.

  But whatever their origin, the Nagas are now firmly settled in their fortified villages on the Assamese hilltops. Generally the men are about five feet nine inches tall, though some go up to six feet. Their bodies are brown and lithe and agile. Their powers of endurance are remarkable, and men have been known to complete forced marches of thirty to forty miles a day, for several days on end. They can stand the sun and the rain, and carry considerable burdens, usually passing a sling round the forehead to take the strain. Their calves, chests and shoulders are magnificently developed; and through constant climbing in bare feet their toes become widely separated, the big toe branching away from the others. Their features are pleasant, sometimes handsome; though their hair is black from puberty onwards, their eyes are always brown. Their voices are musical and they have a wonderful laugh. As to dress, they wear a short kilt, and are bare above and below this, except for a wide band of beads round the neck. They also wear bangles on arms and legs, and a wide variety of other decoration according to individual prowess in love and war. A fourth row of cowries on the kilt, for example, indicates ‘an intrigue with a married woman living with her husband’ or ‘a double-barrelled intrigue with two girls of the same name’. Some of the older men wear sleeveless red coatees; and those in authority carry rolled umbrellas, which appear ludicrously incongruous.

  The Naga village is invariably built on the summit of a hill, on a high saddle, or on a spur running down from a high range. It is always sited with a view to defence. Writing in the last century, Captain Butler described it thus:

  ‘Stiff stockades, deep ditches bristling with panjies, and massive stone walls, often loop-holed for musketry, are their usual defences. In war-time the hillsides and approaches are escarped and thickly studded over with panjies, sharp-pointed skewers or stakes, some of them as thin as a pencil, which give a nasty wound and often cause complete lameness for some hours.… The approaches to the villages are often up through tortuous, covered ways, or lanes, with high banks on either side, with an overhanging, tangled mass of prickly creepers and brushwood, sometimes through a thick ravine and along the bed of an old torrent, in either case admitting of only the passage of one man at a time. These paths lead up to gates or rather doorways, closed by strong, thick and heavy wooded doors, carved out of one piece of solid wood.’

  By 1944 the panjies and stockades had largely disappeared, but the ditches and walls remained, as did the narrow, hollowed approaches. The villages were still difficult to attack.

  Another feature of the land inhabited by the Angami Nagas is the terracing. Great hillsides are stepped and irrigated, and planted with rice. By this method of agriculture, the Nagas kill two birds with one stone: the clearing of the jungle not only makes the land available, it provides a field of fire. To the south of Kohima, large areas were stepped and cleared in this manner.

  What was happening at Kohima on the 15th March 1944 it is now impossible to say; though almost certainly it was nothing spectacular. The men of the Assam Rifles no doubt drilled on the maidan; the troops at the reinforcement camp lay idling on their charpoys; the Deputy-Commissioner, Charles Pawsey, went up to see his Nagas; the doctors, sisters, and nurses in the 53rd I.G.H. went on quietly with their work; and at lunch time and in the evening the officers congregated in the club to sip gimlets and chatter. Perhaps a few of them went down to the D.C.’s bungalow for a quiet game of tennis. Few if any of the officers knew that a Japanese offensive had begun on the Imphal front; none imagined that it could really affect Kohima. The place was too remote, too inaccessible. So the sun went down slowly behind Mount Pulebadze, the lights came on right across the great crescent of mountains, then one by one went out again. Tonight, at least, Kohima slept at peace.

  *

  During the 16th and 17th March General Stopford occupied himself with administrative matters; and the 2nd Division rounded off its jungle training. On Sunday the 19th John Grover met Stopford after breakfast and they talked of training and leave. It was high time, Stopford said, that Grover took some leave himself. Whatever was decided, Grover left for his headquarters, and Stopford studied a paper on ‘the handling of the M.T. Division in the jungle’. Then, as he was preparing for dinner a signal arrived to say that the 2nd Division was to concentrate at its brigade stations. At midnight a further signal came to advise Stopford that the division would probably be required with 14th Army. This was followed by administrative orders, warning that road parties were to start moving to the Burma front on the 24th, and rail parties on the 26th. No mention had been made of the 33rd Indian Corps or its commander, so Stopford’s initial reaction was that his troops were being taken from him, and he and his headquarters would now be serving no useful purpose. At 9.0 a.m. Grover arrived, having driven hard through the night from Belgaum. He had already given orders for his division to start concentrating, but was somewhat astonished at this new development. ‘It was only on Saturday,’ he said, ‘that General Giffard told me there was no likelihood of the Division being employed in Burma this year.’ Then at 6.0 p.m. yet another signal arrived, from Southern Army, informing Stopford of the Japanese offensive against Imphal. It also gave him orders to report to H.Q. 14th Army at Corrulla in two days’ time with a skeleton staff, and to bring up the remainder of his headquarters as quickly as possible. No doubt he experienced some excitement at this sudden turn of events; instead of losing his Corps as he’d feared, he was going to command it in battle. But, as always, he remained a realist, and noted: ‘We are going to buy a very sticky show unless we are careful.…’

  By now the advance guard of Sato’s 31st Division was less than fifty miles from Kohima; Stopford, Grover, and the 2nd Division were 1,500 miles by plane, and well over 2,000 by road or rail. But such were the extraordinary chances of war, the twists of fate, and the decisions of the generals, that it was here they were to meet in a bloody and prolonged battle of attrition; a battle which was to prove one of the great turning points of the War.

  2

  A Colonel from Delhi

  To understand the causes for the Allied predicament in March 1944, and the background to the Japanese offensive in Burma, it is necessary to trace briefly the events of the previous two years. In May 1942 the Japanese had contemptuously swept the weak British forces out of Burma, b
ut did not pursue them across the border into Manipur, the small state which acts as a buffer between Burma and India. Their reasons for calling off the chase may have been many; the lengthening of their line of communications, the difficulty of campaigning in the monsoon, or their official reason, which was to avoid arousing ill-feeling among the Indian masses. But whatever the reason for it, the lull was fortunate for the British, as only one division now remained to protect the Northeast frontier of India, the 23rd Indian.

  The capital of Manipur is Imphal, which lies sixty-five miles to the south of Kohima. It is situated on a plateau some 2,600 feet up in the mountains, known as the Imphal Plain. This plateau (which extends forty miles by twenty) is formed by an opening in the Manipur River gorges and originally formed the bottom of a lake. The soil is fertile, the vegetation lush, and all manner of flowers, fruits, and vegetables abound. The duck-shooting has been renowned for many years, and Logtak Lake has been the scene of shooting parties since the British penetrated into the country in the last century. The Manipuris are clean and prosperous, take a keen delight in songs, music, and dancing, and instituted a State Ballet Company many centuries before the French or the Russians.

  It was to Imphal that many refugees came when the Japanese invaded Burma, over 150,000 of them. There were Indian coolies, dock labourers from Rangoon, household servants, Anglo-Indians, Anglo-Burmese, along with British families who had been engaged in oil or timber, and random representatives of many other nations. They were attacked by exhaustion, hunger, disease, and stumbled into the refugee camp more dead than alive. Many did die, and it is said that the columns of vultures wheeling above the camp could be seen for miles.

  After the refugees came the troops, ragged, almost like scarecrows, but still in the ranks and still carrying their rifles. They had been defeated, humiliated, and were somewhat bewildered. The fact that they had not been disgraced seemed merely academic at the moment; what mattered was sleep, food, and a lot more sleep.

  To General Slim and his commanders this was no time for sleep; it was now perfectly obvious that if the Allied Armies were ever to launch an offensive against the Japanese and clear them out of Burma, Imphal must be the springboard. Slim conferred with Lieut.-General Scoones who was responsible for the northern front, and plans were set in motion to build it into a vast base. Slim has said: ‘The Japanese Army seemed as little prepared as we were to advance in the monsoon, and we might reasonably look for a breathing space….’ In fact, one Japanese staff officer, Lieut.-Colonel Hayashi, was already arguing with his superiors that it was imperative that Imphal should be captured at once, before the British could carry out their plans. His arguments found favour with the High Command in Tokyo, but the divisional commanders in Burma wanted to pause and consolidate—and Slim got his breathing space.

  So, on the central front during 1943, operations were confined to patrolling and air activity. But politically, and among the military commanders, there was tremendous activity and by August the entire command structure had been changed. Till that date, Slim was commanding the old Eastern Army, and, apart from dealing with the Japanese, had vast internal security responsibilities in Behar, Orissa, and most of Bengal. The job was palpably impossible. Furthermore, he had to take his orders from G.H.Q. India, and, as became increasingly obvious with every week that went by, the idea that this ramshackle organization could prosecute a successful campaign was quite ludicrous; and some other headquarters must be formed. Not only the Chiefs of Staff at home were worried, but the Americans who had a special concern for China. By the beginning of 1943 it had seemed likely that Chiang Kai-shek’s armies were near defeat, and if they did quit the field not only would large forces of Japanese be freed for other fronts but the American Air bases would be lost. This possibility led to consideration of the reopening of the Burma Road; but the latter could obviously not be effected until northern Burma had been retaken from the Japanese, and the mention of northern Burma led to the command situation, which was bristling with problems. General Stilwell, old ‘Vinegar Joe’, the American who had commanded the Chinese forces in the retreat from Burma, was convinced that the British had no fight left in them, and openly said so. However, a new road was proposed running from Ledo in Assam and following the Hukawng and Mogaung valleys to Myitkyina, before crossing to Bhamo to join the old Burma Road where it crossed the Chinese frontier; and Stilwell was given the job of driving it through. The railway from Ledo, it is worth mentioning here, ran down the Brahmaputra Valley to Jorhat and Dimapur (railhead for Kohima and Imphal) before curving away east for Gauhati and Bengal.

  In August 1943 the South-East Asia Command was created at the First Quebec Conference by the British and American Governments. The intention was that all campaigning should be taken out of the hands of G.H.Q. India, and a new unified command set up with Admiral Mountbatten as Supreme Commander. Under him there were to be three Commanders-in-Chief for the three services: Admiral Sir James Somerville, General Sir George Giffard, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse. Slim’s forces were to be put under Sir George Giffard’s nth Army Group; and Slim would thereby be relieved of all his internal security responsibilities, and could concentrate on training his men and defeating the Japanese.

  But the setting up of new commands and the appointment of new commanders does not necessarily bring order out of chaos; and in this instance it appeared for some time that the chaos would become even worse. None of the three C.s-in-C. understood the concept of a Supremo, and it did not take Mountbatten very long to decide that he would have to get rid of them as soon as possible. Sir George Giffard with his dry, factual, down-beat manner depressed him especially; when he was merely stating difficulties, Mountbatten assumed that he was creating them. The personalities refused to mix. Sir James Somerville was senior to Mountbatten in naval ranking, and had commanded a fleet in action (which Mountbatten had never done) and therefore considered the notion of serving under him as somewhat comic. But, apart from matters of personality and rank, there were other enormous problems to be solved. Mountbatten found, for example, that his naval units were controlled by the Admiralty in London, and his American Air Force squadrons took their orders from Washington. His headquarters, at present sited in Delhi, were right outside his own area of command; and most of the thirty departments were at war with each other. His directives came from the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington, but Churchill had a habit of weighing in with his own interpretation of these, or even issuing supplementary directives which conflicted with the originals. And, furthermore, action or even the initial planning for it had to be preceded by a good deal of tiresome horse-trading with Chiang Kai-shek, President Roosevelt, and Wavell, who had now taken over as Viceroy of India. More tangled still were Mountbatten’s relations with Stilwell; this commander was not only his deputy, he was Roosevelt’s accredited agent and had his own responsibilities for keeping China in the war, and therefore for the flow of supplies over the Hump. Such unlikely arrangements have worked, of course, but only with a constant supply of goodwill; and none came from Stilwell. He was acidly anti-British; did not believe they ever wanted to fight the Japanese. And he caused trouble at every turn. The basic cause of difference between the British and the Americans was China; the British had no faith in it whatsoever and wanted to hit the Japanese in Burma to restore their own damaged prestige, while the Americans thought Burma a side-issue and believed firmly that if only the supplies could be pushed through, Chiang Kai-shek’s armies would keep fighting. The views were quite unreconcilable.

  However, Mountbatten went ahead with great courage and energy to overcome the mountainous difficulties confronting him. He moved his headquarters from Delhi to the less political atmosphere of Kandy in Ceylon. (This enraged Sir George Giffard as he was tethered to G.H.Q. India, and there was not even a telephone line between Delhi and Kandy.) He directed and spurred on a great administrative build-up on the Burma front; and he endlessly explored every possible means of getting at the Japanese b
y land and by water. But, as his Command came at the end of the queue for arms and equipment, these projects were gradually whittled down, and in December 1943, as already mentioned, the landing craft were recalled for the Anzio battle. Somewhat dispirited, Mountbatten reported to the combined Chiefs of Staff that the possibility of our engaging large numbers of enemy troops at numerous points now depends largely on the initiative of the Japanese themselves’.