大象传媒

PART I-

To the world, our Tom was just a soldier,
To us he was the whole world.
Mom and Dad
- epitaph for a 19 year-old soldier at the
World War II cemetery on Garrison Hill,
Kohima.

This serene, well-kept, terraced cemetery has manicured lawns, geometrically arrayed graves bordered with flowering plants. Bushes and trees bordering the perimeter are so carefully selected that some portion blooms every month. People stroll about or rest under its trees. It is difficult to imagin that this peaceful retreat, these very terraces, were once the scene of a fierce and bloody battle, where 45 years ago men fought each other, viciously, for a few metres of ground.

Then, this hill was perpetually shrouded in swirling mists of clouds and cordite. The shattered leafless pines, firs and oaks looked like grotesque dancers transfixed. A dense forest teeming with life had been stripped. Violence and destruction were everywhere. Bodies lay putrefying where they fell, one on top of the other, bayoneted, blasted, bombed to bits or clubbed. Some could be buried, time and lull in the firing permitting in shallow graves, which would burst once the bodies bloated. Others lay rotting- Japanese and Allied soldiers- together in death. To reduce the stench, lime, as essential as water, was airdropped for the beleaguered. As the graves were made months after the fighting was over, both friend and foe lie buried here, though the 1287 headstones tell a different story.

This cemetery maps the limit of the Japanese advance into India. In April-June 1944, the bitterest hand-to-hand battles of the Second World War were fought here. A knoll just above the Kohima Pass (1,600m) dominating a strategically vital 280* bend in the 225-km long Dimapur-Imphal road (see map). Today, at its base, it is surrounded by a long row of untidy shops, long line of parked cars, unruly traffic and a road as rough as the one in use then. On this very spot had stood the DC's bungalow. A pretty house with a neat garden in front and a utilitarian vegetable patch at the back. On the terraces behind were the club house and the tennis court. All around, the forest-smothered mountains glowered. To the south rose the thickly-wooded, kilometres-long ridge, culminating in the summit of Japfu (3043m). Below this ridge and along the Imphal road were a number of hillocks on which the Indian and British soldiers had been surrounded. At the beginning of the siege the garrison at Kohima under a resolute Col. Richards held all these hillocks but was gradually forced back until only one remained- Garrison Hill. This was where the DC's house, the garden, the club house and the tennis court were.

Three thousand Allied soldiers. African, British, Indian, and Nepalese, had been surrounded by 15,000 Japanese. The siege lasted 64 days. 7,000 men from both sides were killed.

The War struck northeast India on March 28, 1944 when a column of the Japanese 138th Regiment commanded by Col. Torikai overwhelmed a detachment of Assam Regiment, Rajputs and West Yorkshires at Jessami, a town in Ukhrul district of Manipur, at the very spot where now is the camp of a Border Roads detachment. The British were unprepared for such a lightning attack. Earlier the Allies had been

Of vinegar and roads

As the Japanese were advancing towards India's borders in the North-East, the Allies were weaving a road over the Patkai hills through northern Burma to Kunming in south-west China, so that they could, together with Chiang Kai-shek's forces, strike down at the Japanese forces concentrated in central Burma. This road was pushed through bureaucratic and other difficult jungles by the American General Stilwell, popularly known as "Vinegar Joe," on account of his caustic comments, which were normally directed at the "limeys" (Britishers). This road, 1800 km long, is known as the Ledo or Stilwell Road. The labour was largely Indian, and some Chinese and Burmese. It was "volunteered" by the British owners of the tea estates that were sprinkled all over these parts. At night the labourers were kept in camps surrounded by barbed wire, with the more restless ones in chains. This was the practice till 1962. To make them work more and to suppress hunger, opium from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh was given to them every day. Some descendants of these opium contractors are still supplying opium, but mostlt to truck drivers.

In 20 months this road snaked through the hitherto inviolate jungle mountains, where even foot tracks were few. Black, brown and yellow men tolled shoulder-deep in streams, belt-deep in mud. The whites supervised. Bulldozers were buried when rain-soaked shelves collapsed and slid into streams 300 m below. After heavy rain, which is frequent here, the road would sink out of sight. Incessant toil in torrential rain, humid heat and damp cold played havoc with men's health. As one soldier said, "You've got to be insane to do this job, but it helps."

Stilwell, never one to be still, moved on. The road followed. Down it flowed soldiers, the paraphernalia of war, and water. The maker of the road was another American General, L.A.Pick, who had designed the Missouri dam. On the Ledo road he had more water than he could have ever wanted. Once when Mountbatten, the Supreme Commander, was flying over this road he asked for the name of the river flowing beneath. He was told:
"That's no river. Its the Ledo road."

Today, part of this road near Pangsau Pass is again covered by forests and the old foot tracks are being used by the Kachins who come to India to barter cloth, opium and precious stones for essentials. Till a few years ago the jungle was thick and dark. Today the axe is active again in the service of an important peacetime activity 鈥� commerce. Magnificent trees are being cut to produce plywood.

* * *

An honest bureaucrat's frugal lifestyle had been partially responsible for the prolonged Kohima struggle. Charles Pawsey, the then DC of Kohima, was in 1922 the first DC to own a car there. In those days conduct rules were strictly followed. As the job of building a road to his house had to be paid from his pocket, a lot of corners were cut too sharply. Such was the road on which a tank had to be brought up to turn the tide. Even the DC's little car could not negotiate the bends till it reversed once. A trivial personal matter of making both ends meet was to prove so costly in a great battle 22 years later.
*

chased out of Burma into India through these very routes in a swift and successful move that was concluded in the winter of 1943. While the Allies consolidated their position in Manipur and built the road to northern Burma and China from Ledo in Assam intending to retake Burma at an opportune time, the Japanese created a diversion in the coastal Arakan mountains of western Burma. Masses of Allied troops and aeroplanes were hurled there.

Just when the Allies were congratulating themselves on containing the Japanese, they were attacked in a massive hook right next to the heart of the British bases at Imphal and Dimapur. The panicky British recalled forces from all over India, and withdrew from the Arakans. Helped by the Americans, who supplied most of the planes and war materiel, and the then subject countries who supplied most of the men (Indians formed two-thirds of the war effort), an unprecedented holding battle was successfully waged.

From Pangsau Pass (1,129m) in east Arunachal to the north to Moreh and Behiang in Manipur to the south this easternmost portion of the North-East was engulfed in an all-encompassing war. The areas where the battles were fought were numerous (see map). Fifty five years ago, tanks thundered where carts filled with golden paddy now ply. The skies were dark with Blenheims, Dakotas, Hurricanes, Mustangs, Spitfires and the Japanese Zeros. The now unused airfield of Korengei (it has a school at its edge and the still functional airstrip is used to learn driving), 8 kms north of Imphal, had 600 landings and takeoffs a day. I have visited all the battlefields, tried to imagine the movements of victory and death, and it seems so difficult to visualise the action and the anguish. Instead of the sounds of war one now hears a cicada, a startled thrush, a waterfall, a deer in flight, or children at play, or at Lokchak lake, frenzied activity to set up a hydroelectric plant. In the midst of droning trucks and milling crowds, forgotten are yesterday's booming guns and dying soldiers.

This area is no stranger to war; it has known fighting since the beginning of recorded history, and most probably even centuries before. The Koch and the Cachari races fought each other without respite for generations, till the Ahoms, peoples of the great Tai races of Burma, invaded the area. They ruled firmly for 700 years till 1825 when by the Treaty of Yandaboo the British supplanted the Burmese. Though in the 15th and 16th centuries the Assam Valley, parts of Manipur and Cachar had good roads, years of strife had ruined them. Even today a bridge built four centuries ago stands near Sibsagar.

Communications were difficult till the tea plantations were started in the 1830s, followed by coal mining in the 1860s, and oil exploration in the 1880s (the first oil well in India was spudded in Digboi in 1886). By 1850, steamers were plying up the Brahmaputra as far as Dibrugarh, from where the first rail way line was laid till Ledo in 1888. Despite the improved transport network and efficient control, violence persisted. The Nupis (women鈥檚) Rebellion, which sparked a bigger conflagration against the British in Manipur in 1891 and the several revolts by Nagas and others kept the British tense. Communications improved, but only by rail and river.

Only during the Second World War was the need for a good road felt, and then the present Assam Trunk road was repaired along the same alignment as the ancient trail made by the 16th century Koch King. Nar Narain, and his brother Chilarai.. The 1944 battles were the worst tribulation of the British .

By April 4, the Allies were bottled up at Kohima (from Kew-hima, meaning land of the Kew flower) Gen. Sato had established his 31 Division's headquarters in the remote hamlet of Ukhrul (1920 mtrs), between the Chindwin river in Burma and the Imphal-Kohima road Kohima was to become the Stalingrad of the Indo-Burma front - the springboard to victory for the winner.

In an area just 180 m x 225 m on Garrison Hill a brigade was stranded. At a couple of places the opposing trenches were within 15 meters of each other. The stench of death and waste mingled with dust, din, courage and cowardice. Thirst too. As the water supply sources were with the Japanese, water sewed inside tyre tubes was dropped from planes flying at tree top level. Gen. Slim, the Army Commander for the Burma campaign, wrote in his book "Defeat into Victory" "Sieges have been longer, but few have been more intense".

All firepower was concentrated on Garrison Hill. The relieving allied forces, unable to come closer, had set up their big guns at Jotsoma, 10 km away. Baluch, Khatak, Maratha, and Sikh gunners would rain shells with remarkable accuracy just outside the fast-shrinking perimeter in which their fellowmen were stuck. A charming garden had been reduced to bloody rubble, with a chimney standing black and twisted against the sky, emphasising the grim wasteland-like appearance. After one particularly murderous night, each side was left holding a part of the garden with the tennis court as no man's land between them. A lone Japanese sniper sitting in a cherry tree at the eastern edge of the tennis court had ensured that no side won a game. It had been deuce for 20 days. The tide turned the Allies' way when, after losing three tanks and two bulldozers, Sgt.Waterhouse of the 149 Royal Armoured Corps brought his Lee tank up to the tennis court. Then it was game set and match for the Allies.

There were several heroes in the Battle of Kohima. On the Allied side was John Harman, who won a posthumous Victoria Cross for repeatedly charging Japanese bunkers alone. Wellington Massar, a Garo, got a Military Cross for setting up a machine gun atop a billiard table in the bombed club house and preventing the Japanese from getting across the tennis court. Capt.Abdul Majid, Gunner Majhi Khan, Major Navin Rawley, Lt.Ayappa, 2nd Lt. Lahiri of the Indian Army and many others were all recognised for their bravery. Of the Japanese nothing is known except that many of them died. The Japanese, whose stubborn bravery won reluctant admiration from even the bitterest Britisher, suffered the most. At Kohima 5,000 of them were killed against 2,000 of the Allies.

Before attacking British India the Japanese had done their homework well. They had organised mules, buffaloes and elephants for transport, while the Allies got bogged down with their mechanised vehicles in an uncoordinated retaliation. In several British despatches reluctance was expressed for killing elephants while the killing of men was reported gleefully. In fact, at places they were so exaggerated that Stilwell commented: "My men are killing the same Jap over and over again." The Japanese had even introduced a special currency for the occupied areas. It was in Rupees (the Burmese currency is Kyats) and cents. About a decade ago I stumbled across it being used in a remote border settlement near Tusom in the north of Manipur. I managed to obtain a few such notes by bartering clothes.

I spoke to several Indian veterans of this war about the alleged Japanese brutality. They said the Japanese were not cruel to them. One such eyewitness was the late Maj. R. Khating, MC, MBE, ex-Chief Secretary of Nagaland and ex-Ambassador to Burma. He was part of the V Force that had caused much havoc behind the Japanese lines. The Japanese were hard no doubt, and were very contemptuous of prisoners, themselves preferring suicide to capture. This is why for many thousands of Japanese casualties in India only about 600 were taken prisoner.

Had the Japanese continued their tactics of engaging, encircling and then bypassing the enemy they would have effortlessly reached, by mid March, the narrow defile of Nichugard, which is today dominated by nothing more lethal than a college. So easy to defend was this site that the Allies would not have got past it in a month of blue moons. The Japanese would have breathed down Dimapur鈥檚 railway junction and perhaps taken it too. This was not to be. Generals Sato and Mutaguchi of the 15th Japanese Army and their senior General Kawabe of the Burma Area Army Headquarters argued interminably with each other, till the initiative was lost forever.

By June 6, Kohima Ridge was in the hands of the Allies. They could now move towards Imphal to lift the siege there. However, the resistance did not diminish. At every possible spot on the road fierce battles were fought by the retreating Japanese. The speed of the bloody advance towards Imphal was just five to six kilometres a day. Yet the troops were glad to have left the awful confines of Kohima Ridge.

The relieved and the relieving troops could not forget the shallow muddy trenches, dismembered limbs, empty cartridge cases, ammunition boxes and abandoned equipment, the debris of numerous assaults. And the stench of so many things rotting. The most lasting impression was caused by the litter of war- piles of biscuits, dead bodies black with flies and scattered silver from the DC's bungalow. This is where the war cemetery now stands. A huge brooding cross at the side of the tennis court nudges people to remember what is best forgotten. The lines of the tennis court have been etched in concrete. A few months after the war was over, a huge rock obelix was hauled up the steep Kohima slope and fixed at the base of the present day cemetry. Its jagged and rugged sides were not honed. Its rough texture was not polished. In its middle is a shining plaque on which is written:

鈥淲hen you go home
Tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow
We gave our today.鈥�

These lines were written by JM Edmonds.

From my book "Lands of Early Dawn" by Romesh Bhattacharji
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