Show notes
Last time we spoke about General Douglas MacArthur's operations against western New Guinea Operation Desecrate One, and the death of Admiral Koga. MacArthur unleashed hell from the skies above against Hollandia and other key target in the Western parts of New Guinea. Accompanying this was Operation Desecrate One, a carrier raid against Palau followed by strikes on Yap and Woleai in the eastern Carolines, in order to prevent the Japanese from reinforcing Western New Guinea. Lastly the commander in chief of the IJN, Admiral Koga, like his predecessor, met his end at the hands of an aircraft crash. But the Japanese had not just lost their commander in chief, they also lost the Z Plan to the allies. The Z Plan documents were taken by Filipino guerillas and found their way to Nimitz who would put them to good use in the future battle of the Philippine sea. This episode is the Battle of Kohima Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. We are back in the exciting Burma Front to start off this podcast. The Japanese attack against Imphal was being directed by the ambitious and to be frank, quite insane General Mutaguchi Renya. Mutaguchi sought to seize Imphal by a combination of guile, dislocation and surprise. Mutaguchi needed to destroy the British-Indian army at Imphal while also cutting off their rear escape at Kohima. Operation U-Go, was not Go-ing very well, yet I made a pun. The Indian troops were digging their heels in, providing much more resistance than expected. Added to this the Chindits unleashed Operation Thursday, delivering a dangerous thrust into the Japanese flank. Now last we left off, the Japanese 33rd and 15th divisions were launching their first attacks against Imphal, while General Sato’s 31st division advanced northwest upon Kohima. Sato’s intentions were to cut off the British-Indian defenders by taking Kohima and seizing the vast depots and stores of Dimapur. To defend Kohima and Dimapur, General Slim had given the task to Major-General Robert, whose HQ was at Dimapur. Robert had the Kohima Garrison at his disposal, roughly 2500-strong men led by Colonel Hugh Richards since March 22nd, built around the 1st Assam Regiment. The 1st Assam Regiment was led by Lt Colonel William Felix “Bruno” Brown, and they had orders to “fight to the last man” at the Jessami-Kharasom position. Now relief was going to be provided by Lt General Montagu Stopford whose 33rd corps, formed around the 5th and 7th indian divisions and British 2nd division arrived in early april. Stopford planned to concentrate his men at Jorhat, about 105km north-east of Dimapur, where they could be ready to launch a counterstroke against Dimapur. A single brigade would be dispatched as soon as it arrived to defend the Nichugard Pass, about 13km south-east of Kohima on the road to Dimapur. They would support the 161st Brigade already at Dimapur and the 23rd Long Range Penetration Brigade of Brigadier Lancelot Perowne was going to reinforce Kohima by April 12th. Lancelot’s group would disrupt and cut the Japanese lines of communication back to the Chindwin. Meanwhile, General Yamauchi’s 15th division and General Sato’s 33rd division were on their way towards the Imphal-Kohima road. South of them was the Honda Raiding Unit, built around the 3rd Battalion of the 67th Infantry Regiment. Their job was to cut off the road at the Kangpokpi Mission in the Ukhrul area. Luckily for Honda and his men, they were able to dodge the catastrophic battle at Sangshak. His unit would reach the road by the 28th, blowing up a bridge near Kangpokpi. There were other units performing similar roles, such as Colonel Matsumura Hiroshi’s 60th regiment who were given the task of cutting off the road at Satarmaina. After the Battle of Sangshak, the Hiroshi’s Unit advanced through Lamu, Tongou, Shongphel, Nungga and Angam cutting the Imphal-Kohima Road at Satarmaina by April 3rd. There was also Colonel Omoto Kisaso’s 51st regiment, who advanced against Hill 4950 by March 31st encountering little to no resistance. After this they advanced further and took Hill 4192 on April 1st. Up in the north, the 3rd battalion, 138th regiment had advanced through Layshi without much opposition while the bulk of the division approached Jessami. On the 26th, Colonel Torikai Tsuneo’s 138th regiment crashed into defensive positions held by the 1st Assam Regiment who held their enemy at bay for 5 days. General Slim watched over the developments at Sangshak and Jessami with great interest. Then a unit captured Japanese order from Sangshak confirmed his worst fears. “Within a week of the start of the Japanese offensive, it became clear that the situation in the Kohima area was likely to be even more dangerous than that at Imphal. Not only were the enemy columns closing in on Kohima at much greater speed than I had expected, but they were obviously in much greater strength.” Slim had expected a strike against Kohima by a Japanese regiment, but the entire 31st Division was on its way. “We were not prepared for so heavy a thrust. Kohima with its rather scratch garrison and, what was worse, Dimapur with no garrison at all, were in deadly peril.” Luckily, the rapid arrival of the 161st Brigade at Dimapur and the dispatch of the 33rd Corps to reinforce Kohima could give him a fighting chance. Both locations received attacks on the 26th, and over the next five days both units held their own. But they had lost communications with Kohima, and recall orders could not be issued. A American colonel flew a Piper Cub to airdrop orders, which Brown finally received on the 31st. Brown pulled back April 1st, but Lt Young never got the message. On his own ordered his men out. “I shall be the last man,” he declared, and with difficulty got his company moving toward Kohima. No one ever saw Young alive again, nor was his body identified. The 1st battalion, 58th regiment had also been dispatched from Ukhrul on the 24th and would cut the Imphal-Kohima road at Tuphema by March 30th. After the disastrous battle at Sangshak, General Miyazaki ordered a battalion to head over to Pulomi, while the 3rd battalion, 58th regiment advanced to Kohima via Chakhabama and the rest of his unit advanced to Kohima using the road. Sato planned to launch a two-pronged assault against Kohima, with Colonel Fukunaga Ten’s 58th regiment from the south while the 138th regiment swung around Naga village to cut off the Dimapur road. This saw a race to feed units into Dimapur before the Japanese arrived. The first units of Major General Grover 2nd division arrived in piecemeal to Dimapur between April 1st and 11th. They came by small-gauge steam train arriving at Dimapur in a panic. The undefended base area expecting attack at any moment and riven with rumors of the impending arrival of the Japanese. Stopfords men were still several days away by the end of March, prompting Slim to order Brigadier Dermot Warren’s 161st brigade to rush over to Kohima. By April 3rd, Stopford established his HQ at Jorhat, where he made a disastrous blunder. Stopford at this point was still under the belief the Japanese main objective was Dimapur. He had some false intelligence indicating Japanese units were at any moment in the process of outflanking Kohima. With this knowledge he ordered 161st to evacuate Kohima immediately. For the units currently at Kohima, they could not believe the order. Warren, Colonel Hugh Richards and the civilian Deputy Commissioner, Charles Pawsey - were aghast at, and vehemently protested the decision. When told that the Japanese were outflanking Kohima to the north Pawsey scoffed, retorting that if true, 'my Nagas would have told me'. Major General Ranking, believing that Stopford was making a mistake, went over the head of his new superior officer and called Slim directly by telephone to petition him to leave Warren at Kohima. General Slim, perhaps unwilling to overrule Stopford, and in any case as convinced as Stopford that Dimapur was the Japanese objective, confirmed Stopford's original order. Warren's 161st Brigade, which had been in the process of organizing the desperately needed defense of the ridge, left Kohima virtually undefended only one day before Japanese attacks began. Had Warren's men been allowed to remain where they were the trauma of the siege that followed would have been much reduced and the stranglehold that Sato was able to maintain on the vital road to Imphal for two long months would have been significantly weaker than it turned out to be. Thus reluctantly, Warren pulled his men back towards Nichugard Pass, leaving only Colonel Richards with the original garrison. Meanwhile Sato’s unit were rapidly advancing through the mountainous terrain of the Naga Hills. Japanese and INA reconnaissance patrols were able to help the unit forage for food on the go, adding to their speed. Perhaps they took some time to eat turtle eggs like Wingate advised. Sorry just had to bring up that weird one, been stuck on my mind. On the morning of April 4th, the 58th regiment began assaulting the southern edge of Kohima at GPT ridge while Miyazaki’s other units were advancing through the hills and valleys leading into Kohima from the east. Colonel Hugh Richard alerted Stopford of the Japanese assault, who immediately realized his grave error. Stopford desperately sent Warren’s men back over to Kohima. Yet only 446 men of the 4th Royal West Kents would manage to get to Kohima in time to help her garrison. They dug in on Kohima Ridge, which is really a series of hills running north-south along the road to Imphal. Gently sloping saddles connect each feature. Since development as a supply base a year earlier, some of its various hills had become known by their function. From south to north, they were GPT “General Purpose Transport” Ridge, Jail Hill, DIS “Detail Issue Store”, FSD “Field Supply Depot”, Kuki Picquet, and Garrison Hill. A northwest extension of Garrison Hill housed a hospital and became known as IGH “Indian General Hospital” Spur. Thick woods, interspersed with the town’s and base’s structures, covered most of these hills. Garrison Hill was terraced and landscaped, and included the home, complete with clubhouse and tennis court of the deputy commissioner for the area, Charles Pawsey. The Imphal-Dimapur Road skirted the ridge to the east before turning west past Garrison Hill. Treasury Hill and a Naga Village settlement overlooked the ridge from the northeast; those heights also extended north to the hamlet of Merema. Southward loomed the imposing Pulebadze Mountain, whereas three miles to the west rose a knoll topped by the village of Jotsoma. Kohima Ridge thus was overlooked by surrounding heights: Pulebadze to the south, Jotsoma to the west, and the Naga Village/Merema to the east and northeast. The same night they dug in on the ride, Sato had just launched attacks against Garrison Hill. The remainder of the brigade were not able to get in and would remain on Jotsoma ridge to the west, where Warren had emplaced his mountain guns to support the defenders. On April the 5th, the action kicked up with Fukunaga’s 58th regiment attacking from the south while a vanguard overcame the Shere Regiment’s sentries on the Naga Hill to the north, successfully securing a place for their artillery at Naga village. 4 mountain guns would support Miyazaki’s attack, also allowing the Japanese to seize the GPT ridge. In a surprise raid, elements of the 3rd battalion, 58th regiment were able to grab the old town part of Kohima and Treasury Hill. As a result of this, Miyazaki wrongly assumed the enemy had simply withdrawn from Kohima, so he ordered his men to begin an advance upon Cheswema. This in turn gave the defenders some time to reinforce their lines. Japanese pressure on the perimeter increased on the morning of April 6, with repeated attacks by the 58th Regiment on Jail Hill. Heavy artillery and mortar fire quickly denuded trees of their foliage, snapping branches and scattering jagged splinters to accompany the whine and hiss of exploding shrapnel. By 11am the surviving defenders were forced off Jail Hill and down into the steep valley through which ran the road, and then up into the relative safety of the trees on DIS Hill, where Major Shaw's C Company were desperately digging in. The Japanese attack was relentless and, although they secured Jail Hill dominating the south-eastern edge of the Kohima Ridge, they suffered extensive casualties, including Captain Nagaya, the commander of 3rd battalion, 58th Regiment, who was killed. Major Donald Easten was also ordered to retake Jail Hill with D Company, 4th Royal West Kents, but by now the Japanese had already dug deeply into the hillside and could not be ejected without considerable expenditure of life. Easten took his company and dug them in around FSD Hill. Since Jail Hill dominated the southern edge of the ridge defensive lines, the disappearing tree cover quickly became a problem for the defenders who were becoming more and more visible to the enemy. It got some bad, the defenders were soon forced to only move positions at night. A company of the 4/7th Rajputs were able to reinforce Kohima by the end of the night, yet overall now 2500 defenders were surrounded by over 15,000 Japanese. The lost of GPT and Jail Hill also meant the defenders had lost access to water, excluding a small spring on Garrison Hill. Richards was forced to limit the men to a single pint of water per day. On the night of the 6th, a company of the 2nd Battalion, 58th Regiment launched a frontal attack against DIS Hill screaming wildly. The fire from the awaiting Royal West Kents scythed into the attackers, as did bombs from Sergeant Victor King's mortars, landing within meters of the West Kent positions. Miyazaki kept sending more and more men, until some infiltrated the defenders positions ending in a confused hand to hand combat brawl. By dawn on the 7th, a counterattack from FSD Hill would be broken by the ferocious Japanese machine-gun and artillery fire. Sergeant-Major Haines led a spirited attack against these positions, dashing 37 meters up the hill with a mixed group of West Kents and Gurkhas, bayonets fixed and lobbing grenades amongst the bashas. Those Japanese who ran were cut down by waiting Bren guns; those who stayed put were burned alive as the thin structures caught fire. The bakery, whose large brick ovens in peacetime produced several thousand loaves of bread each day, was more impervious to these tactics, but combat engineers destroyed the doors with the help of large quantities of gun cotton. Instead of merely blowing in the doors the ensuing explosion destroyed the entire building, only the brick ovens inside withstanding the blast. Escaping Japanese were brought down by rifle fire. Unusually, two Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner, and although one died later of his wounds, the other provided details about the strength and dispositions of the attacking forces. Captain Shiro Sato, Nagaya's successor in charge of 3rd, 58th Regiment, was killed. Over 60 Japanese were killed in this struggle alone, leading the men to mutter among themselves that this was a worse ordeal than Sangshak. One of the problems no…
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