125km non-stop in 35 hours. We did it!
A journey across the Naga Hills in the steps of the Assam Regiment
For those of you who haven’t followed this on social media, I’m delighted to say that twenty walkers successfully completed the 39-hour march from Jessami to Kohima between midnight on 1 April and 3pm on 3 April, exactly mirroring the gallant withdrawal from Jessami of 1st Battalion Assam Regiment in 1944.
It was at Jessami, Kharasom and Sangshak that Sato’s ill-considered assault against Kohima was derailed. It fatally delayed his timetable and caused him irreplaceable casualties. He then went on to fall on Kohima, ignoring the massive prize that lay 46-miles beyond. Why did he seek battle when he should have focused on the strategic prize that was Dimapur? I’ll be writing a new book on this in 2025, in which I’ll explore the weakness of Japanese campaign planning that led directly to disaster in 1944. Suffice it to say at this stage, Sato deliberately sought battle, as it was in fighting that his martial ambitions were achieved. To suggest that this is sub-tactical thinking when what was required was hard-headed strategic thinking is an understatement. For this reason the argument that when, on 3 June 1944 Sato ordered a withdrawal of his decimated division from Kohima, he was somehow ‘saving’ his division, simply doesn’t stack up. Sato had already destroyed his division: those few that survived - perhaps 1,000 or less from an initial 20,000, a casualty rate of 95% - were chance survivors in a campaign that had slaughtered almost everyone else. None of this was necessary. Kohima wasn’t the prize in Assam: Dimapur was. Sato could quite easily have masked Kohima and headed down to the Brahmaputra Valley, there to win an extraordinary victory. Sadly, Sato was just too insufficiently competent a strategist to understand this and too poor a subordinate to accept that his boss, Mutaguchi Renya, was actually right. It’s on such hinges that history swings. Suffice it to say, the most popular book on Kohima today (no names, no pack drill) tells a different story - with Sato as a figure of sympathy - which is why I’ll be presenting a different picture in my new book next year.
But back to the walk. Charlotte Carty, granddaughter of Lt Col Bruno Brown, CO of 1st Assam, who’s crazy idea this was, will be reprising the story of the Assams and the walk via a Kohima Educational Trust webinar. It’s live tonight, but you’ll be able to watch it on the website at your leisure.
If you want to follow the walk, Charlotte’s fitness app shows our route here.
Thank you very much for your writings.
How come such incompetent decisions are taken at the level of units of 20K people? I would more understand at 100, 500, 2000 people, but at 20K people? It boggles the mind, that it could have gone differently (I wonder how differently?) if as you say they would have skipped Kohima.