Remembering Kohima

When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today

Next Thursday at York Minister I will join colleagues from the Kohima Educational Trust to lay wreaths in memory of all those from the Commonwealth who laid down their lives at Kohima in1944. Its always a moving occasion, especially since only a handful of veterans now remain. It used to be an occasion for the old boys to have a party and for vicarious fun by the rest of us. Now, its a moment of reflection for those of us charged with maintaining the memory of their sacrifice.

Photo by Nigel Holland, York Press

Why does Kohima still retain its power nearly eighty years on? For me Kohima doesn’t just represent a battle, but an idea. It was the idea that brute power and arrogance in an invading army could be defeated. It was the idea that indigenous people and defending army, much of which was Indian, could join together in the common cause of defending their homeland. It was the idea that a broken and defeated army only two years before could be rebuilt and vanquish their enemy so comprehensively that they called their retreat ‘the road of bones.’

On 20 April 2013, I presented the case at a public debate at the National Army Museum in London that the Kohima in 1944 was Britain’s greatest battle. Imagine my surprise - and that of many of my friends and supporters in India - that I won, beating the likes of Waterloo, El Alamein and D Day. I accept that it was only a debate and that, on the night, I may have been the stronger debater. But Kohima (and its sister, Imphal) does need to be considered one of Britain’s most significant battles of modern time.

In the debate, I made eleven points, not recorded here in any particular order.

First, the boldness, audacity and shock of the Japanese offensive into India in March 1944 challenged the defence of India, and thus not just Britain’s ability to wage war against Japan, but to govern India herself.

Second, the dramatic recovery plan put in place almost overnight, including the mass airlift of two divisions directly onto the battlefield by men who had never flown in aircraft before, and a third – the famous British 2nd Division – dispatched 2,000 miles across the length of India from its encampment near Bombay

Third, the challenges posed by the extreme physical conditions in the vast spread of jungled mountains in the foothills of the Himalayas that separate India from Burma

Fourth, the do-or-die nature of the fighting. The Japanese had to destroy the British in the mountain border with Burma; and the British had to stop them. Great things were at stake, including perhaps even the security of India in a war with the toughest enemy any British army has ever had to fight.

Fifth, the clash of cultures between the two countries represented a profound separation of world views, of behaviour and attitude to life that made this battle appear to be one between two entirely different species.

Sixth, the fact that this battle, combined with its precursor in Arakan the previous month, represented the first ever defeat by the British of the Japanese in battle since the Japanese had swept into south-east Asia in December 1941. The victory enjoyed by the 14th Army in India was thus of profound significance because it demonstrated categorically to the Japanese that they were not invincible. This was to be very important in preparing the entire Japanese nation to accept defeat and to recognise in 1945 that a negotiated peace settlement on their terms was out of the question.

Seventh, it also demonstrated unequivocally to British and Commonwealth troops that they could beat the Japanese in battle, something their Australian comrades in New Guinea had already magnificently demonstrated and to whom they had given the benefit of their knowledge and learning. By 1944 British and Indian forces in eastern India had been strenuously retrained and prepared to withstand the extraordinary physical and mental demands required of men fighting the Japanese, following the disasters of 1942 and 1943. Lieutenant General Bill Slim – who had taken command of the newly formed 14th Army in August 1943 – was convinced that he could transform the fortunes of his troops, despite the many gainsayers who loudly claimed the Japanese to be unbeatable. The taste of victory in both Assam and Arakan injected into the 14th Army a newfound confidence based on the irrefutable evidence that the Japanese could be beaten. This victory allowed Slim to conduct an aggressive pursuit in Burma in late 1944 and by mid-1945 to defeat the Japanese for a second time, bringing about the profound collapse of Japanese arms in Burma, setting the seal on the process of victory that had begun the year before at Imphal and Kohima.

Eighth, this was a battle in which the indigenous Naga population were not passive observers of the fighting, but who contributed significantly to the fighting, and without whom British success would have been much less certain.

Ninth, this was the last real battle of the British Empire (the Falklands were an aberration) and the first battle of the new India. Eighty-seven per cent of the operational land forces in 14th Army in 1944 and 1945 were Indian, all volunteers who had made a conscious decision to fight. They weren't fighting, of course, for the British or the Raj, but for their homeland, perhaps also for the idea of a newly emerging and independent India. They were rejecting and fighting against the militarism and totalitarianism of Japan. In a profound way it turned out that in fighting with Britain against the Japanese, they were affirming their own nationhood. The success of the Indian Army in 1944, and then in 1945, can be seen as the birth pangs therefore of a new India and a new Pakistan, and soon-to-be free.

Tenth, this was primarily a foot-soldier’s battle, where the courage and dogged perseverance of the fighting men on both sides contributed to the awful and relenting drama of the battle. The fighting skill and tenacity of the Commonwealth soldiers in Slim's 14th Army proved to be a significant reason for their success. Although the troops – Indian and British alike – might still claim that they were the ‘Forgotten Army’, by 1944 there was no doubt about the strength and depth of the hard won esprit d’corps that now lay at the heart of the army; a sense of moral power that was sealed in the heat of battle and the realisation of victory. They, together with their comrades from east and west Africa, had taken on probably the most fearsome enemy the British Army had ever encountered, and had conquered. It was also a battle in which new and relatively unknown military leaders emerged, triumphant as much in battle as in strategy.

Eleventh, and finally, the battle saw the deployment by Slim of an approach to warfighting we have since come to describe as 'manoeuvrist'. This means that he deployed his forces in such a way that he sought to defeat Mutaguchi as much by subtlety and guile as by firepower. ‘Hit the enemy as hard as you can, where he’s weakest, when he isn’t looking’ was the leitmotif of Slim’s strategy.

The fact that Kohima continues to play a subconsciously integral part of British military history is reflected in the fact that no remembrance ceremony today is complete without a recitation of the Kohima epitaph:

When You Go Home,

Tell Them Of Us And Say

For Your Tomorrow,

We Gave Our Today

These words adorn the memorial to the 2nd Division in Kohima, the place of extraordinary sacrifice in 1944, and one of the most humbling places on earth. To me, Kohima will always be Britain's’ greatest battle.