by David Rooney
The third prong of the Japanese attack drove from the east towards Tamu and up through a range of hills to the heights of Shenam on the edge of the Imphal plain. 20 Indian Division under General Douglas Gracey defended this approach. Like 17 Indian Division, 20 Division was now well-trained and confident and had played an active part in developing roads and large stores of equipment ready for the proposed attack on the enemy. They expressed their fury and outrage at having to give up millions of pounds worth of stores and territory that had been won in hard fighting. In spite of these objections they accepted their orders and conducted a model withdrawal up to Shenam at little cost to themselves while inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese 15 Division under General Yamauchi and a specialist force under General Yamamoto. By 1 April, 20 Division was firmly dug in at Shenam, and they realised that their position had to be held at all costs or all the Imphal defences would be at risk.
To Stilwell, as to many later American commentators, these two withdrawals ordered by Slim appeared to be yet another example of the British not being prepared to fight. This was unfortunate because Stilwell was certainly aware of the British plans. He made a typical comment in a letter to his wife in early April 1944. ‘Just a line before hopping off to see Louis who, to put it mildly, has his hind leg over his neck. If they don’t buck up on their side we will also have our tit in the wringer. What a mess the Limeys can produce in short order.’
Attention was focused on Imphal, where a huge military base had been established around IV Corps’ headquarters under Scoones, with a network of roads, supply depots, two general hospitals and basic airfields. Such a large establishment tended to induce something of a peacetime mentality. Even during the siege there were open-air film shows, and a young doctor wrote home, ‘I am having a grand time and I would not miss it for anything.’* The fighting units – 17 and 20 Divisions and the brave defenders of Sangshak – were fiercely critical of corps HQ for its failure to provide urgently needed supplies, especially barbed wire, but, more significantly, for the failure to pass on intelligence about Japanese movements. As the Japanese approached and Imphal was cut off, ‘useless mouths’ were flown out but, to the bitter amusement of the fighting units, no staff officers were included.
Stilwell remained highly critical of the refusal of British officers to attack aggressively, but it is understandable that, after the ignominy of the 1942 defeat and the more recent unsuccessful clashes in the Arakan, Slim wanted to be certain that he had sufficient military power to ensure the destruction of the Japanese. The build-up may have been slow, but by the middle of April, when Imphal was cut off, Slim had six divisions to face Mutaguchi’s three divisions; these were 17 and 20 Indian Divisions, together with 5 and 23 Divisions at Imphal and 2 and 7 Divisions at Kohima. In addition, it should be remembered that on the night of 5 March, when Mutaguchi launched his attack, the equivalent of four brigades of Chindits were sent off to cause havoc behind the Japanese lines.
From the middle of April through May, June and into July, virtually four separate battles raged in and around Imphal and Kohima before the Japanese were destroyed. The situation in Kohima, where the Royal West Kents were relieved on 18 April by the advance of 2 Division under General Grover, suddenly changed. Sato’s 31 Division had to turn to urgent defence. The Japanese had accepted horrific casualties when attacking, but they now showed endless tenacity in skilful defensive tactics. Most were determined to hold their positions to the end. Thus the second phase of the battle for Kohima saw 2 Division pushing forwards slowly against the carefully defended positions of the Japanese.
The fierce antagonism felt between some commanders in battle is well illustrated and well known from Stilwell’s barbed comments in his diaries. Less well known are the clashes between the other commanders who took part in the long drawn out and vicious fighting that continued right the way through the heaviest of the monsoon storms. Sato, whose division was virtually wiped out by the end of June, clashed bitterly with Mutaguchi and told him that his attack on Kohima was insane and stupid. Sato wrote, ‘We have reached the limit of human fortitude … shedding bitter tears I now leave Kohima.’* On 5 July 1944 Mutaguchi sacked Sato from the command of 31 Division. Ironically, it was on the same day that General Grover, who had earned the intense loyalty of his men during the gruesome Kohima battles, was sacked by his corps commander for moving too slowly.
The defence of the eastern perimeter of the Imphal defences at Shenam heights, which rose to over 5,000 feet, saw prolonged and desperate fighting. The Japanese attackers – parts of 15 and 33 Divisions – knew that it offered the quickest and best route through the defences, while 20 Indian Division, consisting of Seaforth Highlanders, Gurkhas, Punjabis and Mahrattas, knew equally well that they had to hold the heights at all costs. The battle raged along a five-mile ridge from 1 April to the end of June. One of the heroes was Neil Gillian, who led an American field ambulance team in the tireless rescue of wounded men. The British recommended him for the Victoria Cross, though as he was not eligible for this award he received the George Medal.
On 28 March, on the northern perimeter of the Imphal defences an advance unit of the Japanese 15 Division cut the road coming in from Kohima and set up powerful defensive positions of its own. Until then more than one hundred lorries per hour had been coming into the Imphal garrison, and afterwards – as it seemed to the Japanese – supplies were flown in by an endless succession of Dakotas. The key battle in this northern sector took place at Nunshigum, one of a range of steep hills whose peaks were lost and recaptured several times. Eventually, with close co-operation between infantry, tanks (Third Carabiniers) and close-support air attacks, the Japanese were slowly destroyed. After one clash at Nunshigum when the Japanese counter-attacked with one hundred men, ninety-eight corpses were found. The Japanese could hardly believe that the British were able to operate tanks in thick jungle and on such steep hills, and one of their commanders remarked, ‘Now we are done for.’ This illustrates another major blunder by Mutaguchi, who had assured his divisional commanders that they would not face tanks during the Imphal campaign.
While desperate fighting continued at Shenam and Nunshigum, the most prolonged and savage battles took place, if anywhere, on the south and west perimeter of Imphal near the village of Bishenpur. As early as the end of April, 33 Division, originally 4,000 strong, was reduced to 1,000 men. Daily close-quarter clashes continued into May, when the difficult conditions were turned into a hideous nightmare by the arrival of the monsoon on the 15th. For the next months of the campaign relentless rain dominated everything. In constant close fighting the British, who had the advantage of a good supply line, massive artillery and close air support, slowly gained the upper hand. The Japanese sustained grievous casualties – one 900-strong unit was reduced to 40 men – and many companies were down to two or three men, with all their officers lost. One brief comment, that ‘They died apologizing and weeping’, sums up the catastrophe that befell them.*
By July 1944 the three Japanese divisions that were intended as the vanguard of the march on Delhi had been savaged and defeated, but the struggle for Burma was far from over. The hard-fought British victories around Kohima and Imphal at least eliminated the threat to Stilwell’s position in north Burma. While the battles raged he was back with his Chinese divisions in the Hukawng valley, now even more determined to drive forward, capture Myitkyina and reopen the Burma road.
As he prepared for the drive to Myitkyina, Stilwell had a short period in which he reflected on the psychology of command and measured theory against his experience of jungle warfare. He wrote:
A good commander is a man of high character (this is the most important attribute), with the power of decision [the] next most important attribute. He must have moral backbone, and this stems from high character; and he must be physically courageous or successfully conceal the fact that he is not. He must know the tools of his trade, tactics and logistics. He must be impartial. He must be calm under stress. He mu
st reward promptly and punish justly. He must be accessible, human, humble, patient, forbearing. He should listen to advice, make his own decision, carry it out with energy.
Unless a commander is human, he cannot understand the reactions of his men. If he is human, the pressure on him intensifies tremendously. The callous man has no mental struggle over jeopardising the lives of 10,000 men; the human commander cannot avoid this struggle. It is constant and wearing, and yet necessary, for the men can sense the commander’s difficulty. There are many ways in which he can show his interest in them and they respond, once they believe it is real. Then you get mutual confidence, the basis of real discipline.
Generals get sharply criticised. They are the birds who shelter themselves in dugouts and send the soldiers out to get killed. They cover themselves with medals, won at the expense of the lives of their men, who are thrown in regardless, to compensate for faulty or poorly thought-out plans.
There are really not many [generals] like that. The average general envies the buck private; when things go wrong, the private can blame the general, but the general can blame only himself The private carries the woes of one man; the general carries the woes of all. He is conscious always of the responsibility on his shoulders, of the relatives of the men entrusted to him, and of their feelings. He must act so that he can face those fathers and mothers without shame or remorse. How can he do this? By constant care, by meticulous thought and preparation, by worry, by insistence on high standards in everything, by rewards and punishment, by impartiality, by an example of calm and confidence. It all adds up to character.
Q: If a man has enough character to be a good commander, does he ever doubt himself? He should not. In my case, I doubt myself. Therefore, I am in all probability not a good commander.
This thoughtful piece was accompanied by his normal sharp and often self-deprecating observations. He mentioned a coloured GI who said, ‘It sure is tough to make an old man like you come up and work in this country.’ Sent some war dogs, he commented that he would rather have had soldiers but joked about training the dogs to smell the difference between Americans, Burmese and Japanese. Then, with his deep anti-Limey prejudices coming out, he added, ‘The British of course don’t smell – they tub regularly. By God the longer I live the more I appreciate George Washington and the boys of the Revolution.’
During March and April 1944 the main focus was on the battles around Kohima and Imphal, which set the scene for the next phase of the campaign. At the same time Stilwell was prodding his divisions forward and preparing for what he hoped would be a signal victory that would confound his critics and justify all he had struggled to achieve – the capture of Myitkyina.
* Harry Seaman, The Battle at Sangshak, Leo Cooper, London, 1989.
* David Rooney, Burma Victory, Arms & Armour Press, London, 1992, p. 75.
* Rooney, Burma Victory, p. 143.
* Rooney, Burma Victory, p. 103.
* Kazuo Tamayama and John Nunneley, Tales by Japanese Soldiers of the Burma Campaign, 1942–1945, Cassell, London, 2000, p. 208.
CHAPTER 11
The Drive to Myitkyina
While the crisis at Kohima and Imphal continued, Stilwell concentrated on the hard-fought advance of the Chinese divisions and Merrill’s Marauders down the Hukawng valley. At Walawbum they had won a significant victory although Stilwell’s hopes of trapping the whole of General Tanaka’s 18 Division were not realised. After Walawbum, Stilwell pursued the same tactics of advancing along the line of the road to Kamaing with his two Chinese divisions supported by armour, while the Marauders were divided into two main columns which made flank marches to reach behind the Japanese and block the road further south. The smaller force made a shallow detour and rejoined the road at Shadazup in the Mogaung valley, while a two-battalion group made a wider sweep to reach Inkangahtawng, which lay athwart the Kamaing road and the Mogaung river. These advances brought some very fierce clashes with the Japanese, who now realised the significance of Stilwell’s attacks and were determined to prevent him from reaching Kamaing. From there he would have been able to threaten all the divisions attacking Imphal.
The Marauders reached Inkangahtawng and established a road block, but the Japanese, realising that this threatened their whole position, counterattacked with a brigade of troops sent from Kamaing and forced the Marauders to move off to Nphum Ga. At this critical stage of the action Merrill suffered a slight heart attack; Stilwell ordered him to be evacuated, and the ever dependable Colonel Hunter took over. There followed days of confused, vicious close-quarter fighting, and on 3 March the Marauders in Nphum Ga were completely surrounded. This substantial element of the Japanese 18 Division was still well supplied with artillery, mortars, machine guns and ammunition and subjected the Marauders to a heavy and prolonged bombardment. Inside Nphum Ga the defenders suffered appallingly. They were short of ammunition, food and water, and the whole area was littered with the decaying and putrefying corpses of men and mules, mostly covered by a blanket of flies and an unbearable stench. The gruesome siege dragged on until 9 April – Easter Sunday – which was observed under similar conditions in Kohima. Then the other Marauder units fought their way in to rescue their comrades and break the siege. Surprisingly, in this prolonged fight the Marauders lost just twenty-five killed but killed over four hundred Japanese. Stilwell followed events closely, and when the siege was lifted he ordered a brief halt and special air drops of food and mail. The only comment in his diary is ‘Galahad is O.K. Hard fight at Nphum.’
Nphum Ga saw the start of a dangerous new factor in the north Burma fighting. Many survivors of Nphum Ga were exhausted and shell-shocked, and Stilwell was either slow or reluctant to recognise this. His driving passion to reach Myitkyina seemed to sweep aside all other considerations, and this was to have tragic and disastrous consequences for his relations not only with the Marauders but also with the Chindits, who were shortly to come under his command.
On 5 March 1944, the same day that Mutaguchi started his three-division attack on Imphal and Kohima, the Chindits launched their main campaign, Operation Thursday. The chief focus of this was the establishment of 77 Brigade under the intrepid Brigadier Michael Calvert in a ‘stronghold’ north of Indaw code named Broadway. The stronghold was Wingate’s new concept in long-range penetration. It envisaged the setting up of a brigade-sized unit behind enemy lines that would be supplied entirely by air and located in rough country where the enemy could not approach with tanks or heavy artillery. A stronghold would be a powerfully defended base from which the Chindits could spread out over a wide area to cut road and rail links, ambush convoys and destroy supply dumps. A second brigade – 111 under Brigadier William Lentaigne – was flown in to Katha, slightly east of Indaw, code named Chowringhee. A substantial part of this brigade – Morris Force – was detached and sent northeast to operate on the road between Bhamo and Myitkyina. A glance at the map will show that the main purpose of the Chindit operation was to strangle the whole supply system to Tanaka’s 18 Division and the forces facing Stilwell by closing the road and rail links at Indaw and the only other road running north from Bhamo. After a few days at Broadway, Calvert felt strong enough to establish a subsidiary base almost astride the road and railway in the narrow valley near Mawlu. This became known as White City because of the number of parachutes that festooned the trees. The Chindit brigades not only destroyed supplies going to the Japanese units facing Stilwell – their first priority – but they also seriously damaged supplies and communications to the three divisions attacking Imphal and Kohima.
When the two Chindit brigades landed near Indaw – ‘in the enemy’s guts’ as Wingate put it – the Japanese reacted swiftly and powerfully. They transferred major units from 18 Division facing Stilwell and from the division facing Yoke Force in Yunnan, along with a special fighting force of nearly divisional strength that was intended for the battle north of Imphal. The main Japanese counterattack fell on Broadway and White City, but Calvert, a Royal Engineer
s explosives expert renowned, for his macabre booby traps, gave outstanding leadership. Over a period of more than ten weeks after 5 March, Broadway and White City repulsed constant and ferocious Japanese attacks. The defences were organised with meticulous care and determination, with mines, barbed wire, fixed-line machine-gun fire and pre-planned 3-inch mortar targets, with the Air Commando Mustangs on ready call. So many thousands of Japanese dead lay around the perimeter that pilots of the light aircraft that flew in to pick up the wounded from Broadway knew when they were close because of the stench from the corpses on the barbed wire.
The role of the long-range penetration units and how long they should operate behind enemy lines was an issue that caused serious friction and intense bitterness between Stilwell on the one hand and the Chindits and Merrill’s Marauders on the other. Stilwell pointed out that the Chinese had been in action since November 1943 and asked why the Chindits should be taken out of the line when they had only flown in on 5 March 1944. He failed to see that a unit behind enemy lines and under constant attack was subject to much greater danger and stress than one in normal campaign conditions.
Calvert, the most successful Chindit leader after Wingate, commanded 77 Brigade from early March to the middle of May at Broadway and for a further two months when his brigade moved up to Mogaung. Later he wrote two classic books on jungle fighting,* in which he weighs up that difficult issue. He admired Slim as one of the best British commanders of the Second World War but maintained that he had a blind spot about the Chindits and also about the use of parachute troops. One tragic incident brought this issue to the fore.