A trip to the battlefields of Jessami and Kharasom

I have just come back from a curated tour of the battlefields of Eastern India. It was very special. There were a number of highlights. One was being accompanied by the grand daughters of Lt Col Dan Laverty of 4th Battalion The Royal West Kents and of Lt Col ‘Bruno’ Brown of 1st Battalion The Assam Regiment. As those of you who know something of the Battle of Kohima, both men spent the entirety of the siege between 4 and 20 April commanding their respective battalions on the besieged Kohima Ridge, when the gallant defenders were relieved by the British 2nd Division, which had raced across India from Poona for the purpose.

To add icing to the cake, we were accompanied for a period by Catriona Child, the daughter of the Naga Queen, Ursula Graham Bower. Ursula kindly gave our Sampan Tours group a presentation on her amazing mother, and the years she spent with her Zeme Nagas in the village of Laisong.

Niamh Strudwick (g/d of Laverty), Charlotte Carty (g/d of Brown) and Catriona Child (3rd, 4th and 5th from right) at the Jotsoma Japanese memorial

The second highlight was undertaking my first visit to Jessami and Kharasom. The early battles by 1st Battalion Assam Regiment to hold back elements of two Japanese regiments advancing on Kohima need to be better known. Like the better known battle of Sangshak, these two battles were instrumental in giving the defenders of Kohima time to recover before Sato’s juggernaut fell. This defence of Jessami and Kharasom was the work of Bruno Brown and the locally raised Khasi, Kuki and Naga soldiers of the Assam Regiment. Ordered back to Kohima after fighting off increasingly heavy attacks, they arrived after marching 80 miles over the rolling jungle clad mountains of the Naga Hills.

Brigadier Hugh Richards, the man appointed in March to be commander of the Kohima Garrison, could not believe the sight of the survivors coming back to Kohima to bolster his weak garrison the day before the first Japanese arrived. He writes:

On 2 Apr the men of the Assam Regt from KHARASOM came in and on the 3^rd Col Brown with some 260 men from JESSAMI arrived in KOHIMA.  The arrivals of Col Brown and his men marching in with heads erect was one of the finest sights of the battle.  Until his arrival, no one knew what had happened to him.

Another highlight was participating in the laying of wreaths at both Jessami and Kharasom to remember the sacrifice of the defenders and, at Kharasom, of Captain Jock Young, about whom I have previously written on this blog. Ordered to fight to the last man and the last round, the repeal of this nonsensical order never made it as far as Young’s A Company. After two days and three nights of fighting at Kharasom Young ordered his surviving men back the 80 miles to Kohima. ‘I will fire the last round, and be the last man’ he told one of his Naiks - Sovehu Neinu - whom I interviewed in 2011. His men got back to Kohima, while Young was killed on the fire step of his trench, alone facing the enemy onslaught.

The road junction at Kharasom between Ukhrul and Mao along which the Japanese 58th Regiment marched in late March 1944, and which Captain Jock Young’s A Company 1st Assams had responsibility for guarding.

Charlotte Carty, Lt Col Brown’s grand daughter, laying a wreath at Kharasom for Captain Jock Young and those of his soldiers who died here.

It was an exhilarating trip. The good news? I’m going back, between 5-16 April 2024. Bertie Lawson (bertie@sampantravel.com) tells me that there are still places available if you’d like to accompany me. The itinerary will be slightly different, but the aim will be to visit Jessami again.

Oh, I nearly forgot! The welcome the villagers of Jessami gave us was extraordinary. You wouldn’t want to miss it…