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| Title: THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA | |
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majorshrapnel
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Date Posted：2022-11-22 01:25:20Copy HTML These battles are mostly lost to history today but their significance cannot be overstated as they saved India from the horrendous fate of a Japanese invading army. |
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majorshrapnel
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#1
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-22 01:32:20Copy HTML By October 1942 Singapore, Hong-Kong, Malaysia and Burma had all fallen to the Japanese and to the ever retreating British the Japanese imperial army looked unbeatable. The Brits were retreating so fast that the Japs couldn't keep up with them in most places and this behaviour gave the Japs a sound loathing and contempt for them. Yet it was then, when morale was at its lowest, that the new British commander Bill Slim arrived and set about reforming and rebuilding the Anglo-Indian British army. Slim aimed to revive allied fortunes in the region, although most thought it was impossible. Meanwhile, Japanese commander Renya Mutaguchi had ambitious plans of his own, the conquest of British India. |
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majorshrapnel
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#2
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-22 01:58:22Copy HTML Imphal and Kohima were of vital strategic importance, being the gateway to India and Mutaguchi had to take them as his base springboard into the sub continent. Slim gathered his general staff to outline his plan of first defeating the Japs at the border towns before invading Burma and kicking the enemy out of south east Asia, so no problems there then. His staff must have thought he was an over optimistic maniac but Slim was Britain's finest general of WW2 and was to prove it. He totally reorganised his men, his officer class and trained them for a new kind of warfare and in doing so instilled a new sense of regimental pride that had been knocked out of them. He made them believe in themselves through a brutally rigorous training regime that would equip them for the battles ahead. Slim knew that the Japanese speed was down to living off their defeated peoples and if they did not win, they didn't get fed and so far that had not been a problem. His strategy was to deny them any provisions whilst restocking his own army from the air, something his enemy couldn't do and he would drain their resolve through hunger, stop them at the border and begin the drive back. |
MarkUK
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#3
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-22 03:24:18Copy HTML They are remembered through the names of Army Barracks - Imphal Barracks is in York and Kohima House is an Army Reserve Centre in Redditch, Worcestershire. You're playing chess with Fate and Fate's winning.
Arnold Bennett
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majorshrapnel
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#4
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-22 06:56:17Copy HTML Not exactly bright lights and fireworks though, is it Mark? Although General Slim does have a statue in London and a fine one at that, close to Montgomery's and Allan Brooke's, another truly vital component of Britain's success in the war and mostly unknown. He was Churchill's guiding light, who managed to keep him on a leash for most of the time and was the greatest strategic General in the world, admired by all. |
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tommytalldog
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#5
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-23 12:53:18Copy HTML Not exactly bright lights and fireworks though, is it Mark? Although General Slim does have a statue in London and a fine one at that, close to Montgomery's and Allan Brooke's, another truly vital component of Britain's success in the war and mostly unknown. He was Churchill's guiding light, who managed to keep him on a leash for most of the time and was the greatest strategic General in the world, admired by all. Slim, Monte, & Brooks all have a prominent mention in my last book, Churchill Walking With Destiny. |
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majorshrapnel
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#6
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-23 08:43:31Copy HTML Not exactly bright lights and fireworks though, is it Mark? Although General Slim does have a statue in London and a fine one at that, close to Montgomery's and Allan Brooke's, another truly vital component of Britain's success in the war and mostly unknown. He was Churchill's guiding light, who managed to keep him on a leash for most of the time and was the greatest strategic General in the world, admired by all. Slim, Monte, & Brooks all have a prominent mention in my last book, Churchill Walking With Destiny. Alan Francis Brooke is often spelt Allanbrooke in many books for some reason. He was a man of immense intellect and foresight, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, which made him Britain's highest ranking soldier. He kept a diary during the war which resulted in two books by Arthur Bryant, Turn of the tide and Triumph in the west, which happened to be the first books I ever read on WW2. What with the war, the allies and Churchill to deal with, it's a wonder he never went insane. He could be very dismissive of other high ranking officers. He said of George Marshall, It is almost impossible to make him grasp the true concept of a strategic situation and he called Eisenhower a charming adept but hopeless General. They were not the only ones though, he was equally scathing of many of Britain's Generals too and Churchill himself came in for the most criticism as he drove him almost mad at times, trying to keep a leash on him and it was such an enormous strain because of his endless scheming and plans, many of which were mad in the extreme. He once wrote, I just don't know what we can do with him at times and then I wonder what on earth we would do without him. He also said of him, without him we would have lost for certain but with him we are on the verge of disaster all of the time. Amazing people. |
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majorshrapnel
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#7
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-23 10:19:50Copy HTML The war in the far east was to be one that the British were totally incapable of fighting to begin with and although they had a standing army there, amazingly they were not trained for jungle warfare, despite being totally encased by it. Mind you, dealing with a few belligerent natives didn't call for it. Also, they had no strategic military purpose as the empire was set up and driven by trade. Another obvious fact that appeared as somewhat of a shock was the vastness of the jungle battleground and its capacity to see off little, skinny, white nobly kneed men from the terraced streets of Britain's industrial cities. In their first encounters they literally just charged straight at them and were wiped out. The Japanese were masters at psychological warfare too and had convinced the British Indian army they were invincible and that was the foremost obstacle Slim had to reverse. General Slim was a very engaging man and would talk to any soldier on their own level, in a language they understood and they felt like 'he was one of them.' He introduced more food, a sure way to any soldier's heart and forward malarial units, tackling the major enemy outside of the Japanese army, which meant that the disease could be tackled on the spot, negating the need to transport men vast distances to hospitals. Their training was more intense than anything they had experienced before and it produced a more competent, optimistic force who were ready to fight what was declared by the National Army Museum in London as Britain's most historically important battle, ahead of even Waterloo and D Day. With his new army and masterplan in place, Slim, Britain's greatest general, was now ready to take on Japan's greatest general. |
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majorshrapnel
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#8
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-23 12:23:36Copy HTML We are dealing with a vast area of operations in this war in Burma and Japan's lines of communication were, by now, stretched along hundreds of miles of dense, inhospitable jungle, with a few million trillion bugs just dying to take a chunk out of them and fly it back to the family and their officers mostly had about as much compassion for their own men as they did for the enemy and that was absolutely none. For the ordinary soldier there was no falling back, never mind returning back and although this brutal regime had brought them to the brink of total success, it was to add handsomely to their downfall in the end. The Burmese jungle was a killer and you could possibly trace a line from Rangoon to Imphal using Jap dead bodies as a marker, as approximately 60,000 of them were to die of disease, fatigue and hunger alone. They simply had no provision or compassion for their men. It is though an impossibility to have any sympathy with them whatsoever as they were, to a man, brutal, sadistic maniacs. Women and children? No different from the men as far as they were concerned and their barbarity knew no ends and you may read a dozen books on Japan's war and I defy you to find a single act of sympathy or compassion. They were even known to kill the doctors and nurses treating them and as the Brits experience of them grew they developed an equal loathing for them and as Shelford Bidwell said in his brilliant book The Chindit War, soldiers came to look upon killing them as nothing more serious than treading on an ant. |
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majorshrapnel
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#9
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-23 01:19:15Copy HTML Slim's strategy played on the psychology of the Japanese, operating a carrot and stick approach. The psychological war had uniquely favoured the Japs up until now but Slim was to reverse this side of the war using their own mentality against them. Exhausted soldiers need rest and many of the Japanese were not only fatigued, they were hungry. Slim met them far out from Imphal, attacked, which was the stick, and retreated, which was the carrot. They just could not resist chasing a retreating force. When they finally stopped for rest, he would attack again and immediately withdraw and as usual they fanatically followed, with their lines of communication getting ever taught and their men getting ever more exhausted and hungry. They removed all possible food, poisoned water, set ugly traps which mutilated men and all the time they were being coaxed forward. Their officers could only see the tactical side of the war right now but Slim was dominating the strategic war. Imphal sat atop a heavily mountainous area and was an excellent defensive position. Mutaguchi's strategic plan was to close the only road of communication to Imphal from the city of Dimapur, thus cutting off Imphal's only land based supply route but this strategic plan was overruled by Tokyo, who wanted Imphal to be the main objective and this was a mistake. The Japanese began their assault, not from the east but from the south, as Slim had predicted but had done so at least a week earlier than expected. In their way stood General Cowan's Indian Brigade, who had orders to engage when confronted but Cowan soon realised the predicament he was in and unilaterally decided to withdraw his army, against orders, towards Imphal and in doing so prevented his force being outflanked and destroyed by the greatly larger force seeking to outflank him. It was a decision that would pay great dividends in the weeks to come. |
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tommytalldog
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#10
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-23 01:39:13Copy HTML We are dealing with a vast area of operations in this war in Burma and Japan's lines of communication were, by now, stretched along hundreds of miles of dense, inhospitable jungle, with a few million trillion bugs just dying to take a chunk out of them and fly it back to the family and their officers mostly had about as much compassion for their own men as they did for the enemy and that was absolutely none. For the ordinary soldier there was no falling back, never mind returning back and although this brutal regime had brought them to the brink of total success, it was to add handsomely to their downfall in the end. The Burmese jungle was a killer and you could possibly trace a line from Rangoon to Imphal using Jap dead bodies as a marker, as approximately 60,000 of them were to die of disease, fatigue and hunger alone. They simply had no provision or compassion for their men. It is though an impossibility to have any sympathy with them whatsoever as they were, to a man, brutal, sadistic maniacs. Women and children? No different from the men as far as they were concerned and their barbarity knew no ends and you may read a dozen books on Japan's war and I defy you to find a single act of sympathy or compassion. They were even known to kill the doctors and nurses treating them and as the Brits experience of them grew they developed an equal loathing for them and as Shelford Bidwell said in his brilliant book The Chindit War, soldiers came to look upon killing them as nothing more serious than treading on an ant. Some Japs refused to surrender for days, weeks, months, even years after the official surrender on 9/2/45. As pointed out in the above post, their lines of communication were stretched to the point that many soldiers considered them unbelievable. Perhaps an early example of Trump's "fake news?" |
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MarkUK
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#11
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-23 02:07:16Copy HTML When Field Marshal Alan Brooke was created a Peer in 1945 he took the title Baron Alanbrooke of Brookeborough, he was elevated to Viscount four months later. You're playing chess with Fate and Fate's winning.
Arnold Bennett
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majorshrapnel
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#12
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-24 10:32:03Copy HTML Following Cowan's withdrawal the British Indian army joined up with the other brigades placed atop of the mountains a few miles south of Imphal and awaited the usual fanatical attack. This was good ground for the defenders as the landscape was open which gave them an excellent view in all directions. The Japanese had no thought of outflanking, or manoeuvre of any kind, their one tactic was the full on banzai attack which had proved so successful in the past and they fully expected it to be the same here but this was a new army awaiting them and the Japanese took a huge amount of unnecessary casualties before changing tact. They now began to manoeuvre and sent forces around the defensive positions so as to attack from the north too, which effectively surrounded them and cut off the defending forces. This is where Slim's plan now paid off, as he began to supply the defenders from the sky, from new airbases he had created on former paddy fields. Spitfires had been flown in, along with radar and the service personal to run the show and they quickly gained air supremacy, securing their supply lines, whereas the Jap's supply route was practically none existent. They simply had to conquer to survive. With the suicide attacks withdrawn the Japs settled on a plan of sniping and attacking at night, which resulted in a terrifying campaign of hand to hand fighting in the dark but were ready to launch a major attack from the north. This is where air superiority now paid off as Slim had the Indian 5th division flown inland as the Japanese launched their offensive the Indians were there to meet them and in a brutal confrontation in which almost every officer was killed or injured, it was left to the NCO's to carry the battle on to victory. |
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tommytalldog
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#13
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-24 02:18:02Copy HTML I have seen pictures of Spitfires with British marking on the decks of U.S. Navy carriers in the Pacific Theater. Did the U.S. Navy ferry some of them for this effort? |
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majorshrapnel
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#14
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-24 03:23:53Copy HTML I have seen pictures of Spitfires with British marking on the decks of U.S. Navy carriers in the Pacific Theater. Did the U.S. Navy ferry some of them for this effort? No, what you would have probably seen was the USS Wasp ferrying Spitfires to the Med for the defence of Malta. They may also have done the same to the far east but I've not heard of it. |
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tommytalldog
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#15
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-25 01:04:04Copy HTML I have seen pictures of Spitfires with British marking on the decks of U.S. Navy carriers in the Pacific Theater. Did the U.S. Navy ferry some of them for this effort? No, what you would have probably seen was the USS Wasp ferrying Spitfires to the Med for the defence of Malta. They may also have done the same to the far east but I've not heard of it. OK, could be in the Med I just remember seeing it once. |
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majorshrapnel
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#16
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-26 09:43:56Copy HTML Incidentally, the delivery of the entire Indian 5th Division was the first time in history that an entire division had ever been landed by air. This fact alone is testimony to Slim's reorganisation of his forces. Slim needed clout to be able to achieve what he did against an all too dated General Staff in India and he gained that clout from Mountbatten, who supported him whole heartedly. The Japanese now being held and defeated in the North and stopped to the south, this marked the closest the Japs ever got to Imphal. The Indians fought with the knowledge that they were fighting on their own soil, for their own people, which lent them a deep desire to conquer this deadly killing machine on their home turf and that's just what they did and this was proof positive that the Japs could be defeated. |
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majorshrapnel
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#17
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-26 09:50:34Copy HTML Incidentally, the delivery of the entire Indian 5th Division was the first time in history that an entire division had ever been landed by air. This fact alone is testimony to Slim's reorganisation of his forces. Slim needed clout to be able to achieve what he did against an all too dated General Staff in India and he gained that clout from Mountbatten, who supported him whole heartedly. The Japanese now being held and defeated in the North and stopped to the south, this marked the closest the Japs ever got to Imphal. The Indians fought with the knowledge that they were fighting on their own soil, for their own people, which lent them a deep desire to conquer this deadly killing machine on their home turf and that's just what they did and this was proof positive that the Japs could be defeated. One of the great shocks for the Japs attacking the hills to the north, because this battle was fought in hilly country, was the sight of tanks in the hills facing them. They didn't't think it possible but the Brits did and got them there. |
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tommytalldog
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#18
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-26 11:35:41Copy HTML Incidentally, the delivery of the entire Indian 5th Division was the first time in history that an entire division had ever been landed by air. This fact alone is testimony to Slim's reorganisation of his forces. Slim needed clout to be able to achieve what he did against an all too dated General Staff in India and he gained that clout from Mountbatten, who supported him whole heartedly. The Japanese now being held and defeated in the North and stopped to the south, this marked the closest the Japs ever got to Imphal. The Indians fought with the knowledge that they were fighting on their own soil, for their own people, which lent them a deep desire to conquer this deadly killing machine on their home turf and that's just what they did and this was proof positive that the Japs could be defeated. One of the great shocks for the Japs attacking the hills to the north, because this battle was fought in hilly country, was the sight of tanks in the hills facing them. They didn't't think it possible but the Brits did and got them there. Apparently those Indians lacked that deep desire about their home turf when the Brits stole it from them & all they needed was leadership. To quote Churchill, the Indians are a beastly people with a beastly religion. Slim was an excellent general who does not get much notice here in the colonies. Not like Monty anyway. |
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majorshrapnel
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#19
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-26 11:53:41Copy HTML India was a British invention as before them the sub continent was just an array of warring principalities. The Brits were mostly horrified by some of the habits of the numerous peoples there and frankly, if you could take Indians back in time to that period, they would be horrified too. Looking at history through modern eyes is always a recipe for disappointment, misunderstanding and a large portion of horror. |
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majorshrapnel
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#20
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-26 12:31:30Copy HTML Between the two key positions of Imphal and Kohima the Indian parachute brigade were positioned in a native village of Shanghan, along with a company of Gurkhas and now they were to suffer the first setback in the campaign. They happened to be in the way of the Japs heading for Kohima. Their commander Brigadier William Hope Thompson gathered his men to tell them of their predicament and the steely Indian soldiers braced themselves for battle. The battle for this tiny village lasted for four days, which took a heavy toll of the Japs, who once more ignored the concept on manoeuvre and charged head on, taking hundreds of casualties in their first charge alone. The defenders were to be almost wiped out, along with any villagers who did not flee into the surrounding jungle. |
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majorshrapnel
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#21
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-30 11:27:14Copy HTML The Japanese were now to move onto the key position of Kohima, leaving Imphal surrounded but but still in British hands, this split Mutaguchi's forces but his army were desperately short of supplies and were starving to death. In a military almost lacking any form of compassion, Mutaguchi stood out as particularly brutal, even to his own men and drove them relentlessly on, actively causing the death of many of them himself. The Japanese hierarchy had no concept of preservation of manpower and this sadistic mindset killed thousands of their own throughout the Pacific theatre of war. They just seemed to enjoy either getting men killed or in the case of the ordinary soldier, getting himself killed. I've often heard the argument that it was the Japanese soldiers none fear of death that made them so good but it's my opinion that it's soldiers who want to stay alive which win wars. Kohima at this time was nothing more than a very small town, little more than a large village really with around 1,500 defenders, consisting of Assam soldiers and The Royal West Kent Regiment, whilst heading for them were 13,000 Japanese. The defenders took up their positions on a hill and the Jap's attacked from three different directions. This was close up, hand to hand warfare and nothing summed up that close quarter melee more than the battle for the commissioner's house and his tennis courts where they were literally firing at each other from a few yards apart, punctuated by hand to hand fighting where people were beaten to death. It was here where Corporal Harman was to win his VC by charging a machine gun post single handed and bayonetting or shooting the entire crew. The poor lad was killed by the very bravado which won him his medal, as he was shot walking back to his mates carrying the machine gun over his head in triumph. When it looked as though they may break through the Indian second division arrived with artillery and shored up the position. The battle lasted two weeks, night and day fighting, as the Jap's fanatically threw themselves time after time at the defenders, only to be repulsed time after time. Finally they could take no more and began to withdraw and this triggered a withdrawal right down the line for them. It was a fighting retreat but Imphal and Kohima marked the highpoint of Japanese success and the end of it. Slim's army was now on the offensive, his tactics had worked and they would chase the Japanese right back to the very place where they began. India was saved and Burma recaptured. It is estimated that the Japanese lost 80,000 men in these battles, astonishing figures. |
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tommytalldog
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#22
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-11-30 07:56:36Copy HTML The code of bushido & examples of soldiers fighting to die rather than live. |
shula
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#23
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-12-01 04:04:15Copy HTML This was a fascinating history lesson, Major. Thank you. Was the Japanese military all volunteer? I imagine every army that has ever existed had its sadistic officers and some must have been made up of them. War is hell. "It is forbidden to spit on cats in plague-time."
-Albert Camus-
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shula
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#24
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-12-01 07:41:37Copy HTML Sir Douglas Bader is hailed as a great WWII British pilot. So I have to know: Is this story true? “He was giving a talk at an upmarket girl’s school about his time as a pilot in the Second World War. “’So there were two of the f***ers behind me, three f***ers to my right, another f***er on the left,’ he told the audience. The headmistress went pale and interjected: ‘Ladies, the Fokker was a German aircraft.’ Sir Douglas replied: ‘That may be madam, but these f***ers were Messerschmitts’.” "It is forbidden to spit on cats in plague-time."
-Albert Camus-
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majorshrapnel
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#25
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Re：THE BATTLES OF IMPHAL KOHIMA Date Posted：2022-12-02 08:38:59Copy HTML Sir Douglas Bader is hailed as a great WWII British pilot. So I have to know: Is this story true? “He was giving a talk at an upmarket girl’s school about his time as a pilot in the Second World War. “’So there were two of the f***ers behind me, three f***ers to my right, another f***er on the left,’ he told the audience. The headmistress went pale and interjected: ‘Ladies, the Fokker was a German aircraft.’ Sir Douglas replied: ‘That may be madam, but these f***ers were Messerschmitts’.” This is a story told many times from many angles. It's an urban myth I'm afraid but a funny one. |
