Last time we spoke about General Douglas MacArthur's operations against western New Guinea Operation Desecrate One, and the death of Admiral Koga. MacArthur unleashed hell from the skies above against Hollandia and other key target in the Western parts of New Guinea. Accompanying this was Operation Desecrate One, a carrier raid against Palau followed by strikes on Yap and Woleai in the eastern Carolines, in order to prevent the Japanese from reinforcing Western New Guinea. Lastly the ...
Last time we spoke about General Douglas MacArthur's operations against western New Guinea Operation Desecrate One, and the death of Admiral Koga. MacArthur unleashed hell from the skies above against Hollandia and other key target in the Western parts of New Guinea. Accompanying this was Operation Desecrate One, a carrier raid against Palau followed by strikes on Yap and Woleai in the eastern Carolines, in order to prevent the Japanese from reinforcing Western New Guinea. Lastly the commander in chief of the IJN, Admiral Koga, like his predecessor, met his end at the hands of an aircraft crash. But the Japanese had not just lost their commander in chief, they also lost the Z Plan to the allies. The Z Plan documents were taken by Filipino guerillas and found their way to Nimitz who would put them to good use in the future battle of the Philippine sea.
This episode is the Battle of Kohima
Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.
We are back in the exciting Burma Front to start off this podcast. The Japanese attack against Imphal was being directed by the ambitious and to be frank, quite insane General Mutaguchi Renya. Mutaguchi sought to seize Imphal by a combination of guile, dislocation and surprise. Mutaguchi needed to destroy the British-Indian army at Imphal while also cutting off their rear escape at Kohima. Operation U-Go, was not Go-ing very well, yet I made a pun. The Indian troops were digging their heels in, providing much more resistance than expected. Added to this the Chindits unleashed Operation Thursday, delivering a dangerous thrust into the Japanese flank.
Now last we left off, the Japanese 33rd and 15th divisions were launching their first attacks against Imphal, while General Sato’s 31st division advanced northwest upon Kohima. Sato’s intentions were to cut off the British-Indian defenders by taking Kohima and seizing the vast depots and stores of Dimapur. To defend Kohima and Dimapur, General Slim had given the task to Major-General Robert, whose HQ was at Dimapur. Robert had the Kohima Garrison at his disposal, roughly 2500-strong men led by Colonel Hugh Richards since March 22nd, built around the 1st Assam Regiment. The 1st Assam Regiment was led by Lt Colonel William Felix “Bruno” Brown, and they had orders to “fight to the last man” at the Jessami-Kharasom position. Now relief was going to be provided by Lt General Montagu Stopford whose 33rd corps, formed around the 5th and 7th indian divisions and British 2nd division arrived in early april. Stopford planned to concentrate his men at Jorhat, about 105km north-east of Dimapur, where they could be ready to launch a counterstroke against Dimapur. A single brigade would be dispatched as soon as it arrived to defend the Nichugard Pass, about 13km south-east of Kohima on the road to Dimapur. They would support the 161st Brigade already at Dimapur and the 23rd Long Range Penetration Brigade of Brigadier Lancelot Perowne was going to reinforce Kohima by April 12th. Lancelot’s group would disrupt and cut the Japanese lines of communication back to the Chindwin.
Meanwhile, General Yamauchi’s 15th division and General Sato’s 33rd division were on their way towards the Imphal-Kohima road. South of them was the Honda Raiding Unit, built around the 3rd Battalion of the 67th Infantry Regiment. Their job was to cut off the road at the Kangpokpi Mission in the Ukhrul area. Luckily for Honda and his men, they were able to dodge the catastrophic battle at Sangshak. His unit would reach the road by the 28th, blowing up a bridge near Kangpokpi. There were other units performing similar roles, such as Colonel Matsumura Hiroshi’s 60th regiment who were given the task of cutting off the road at Satarmaina. After the Battle of Sangshak, the Hiroshi’s Unit advanced through Lamu, Tongou, Shongphel, Nungga and Angam cutting the Imphal-Kohima Road at Satarmaina by April 3rd. There was also Colonel Omoto Kisaso’s 51st regiment, who advanced against Hill 4950 by March 31st encountering little to no resistance. After this they advanced further and took Hill 4192 on April 1st.
Up in the north, the 3rd battalion, 138th regiment had advanced through Layshi without much opposition while the bulk of the division approached Jessami. On the 26th, Colonel Torikai Tsuneo’s 138th regiment crashed into defensive positions held by the 1st Assam Regiment who held their enemy at bay for 5 days. General Slim watched over the developments at Sangshak and Jessami with great interest. Then a unit captured Japanese order from Sangshak confirmed his worst fears. “Within a week of the start of the Japanese offensive, it became clear that the situation in the Kohima area was likely to be even more dangerous than that at Imphal. Not only were the enemy columns closing in on Kohima at much greater speed than I had expected, but they were obviously in much greater strength.” Slim had expected a strike against Kohima by a Japanese regiment, but the entire 31st Division was on its way. “We were not prepared for so heavy a thrust. Kohima with its rather scratch garrison and, what was worse, Dimapur with no garrison at all, were in deadly peril.” Luckily, the rapid arrival of the 161st Brigade at Dimapur and the dispatch of the 33rd Corps to reinforce Kohima could give him a fighting chance.
Both locations received attacks on the 26th, and over the next five days both units held their own. But they had lost communications with Kohima, and recall orders could not be issued. A American colonel flew a Piper Cub to airdrop orders, which Brown finally received on the 31st. Brown pulled back April 1st, but Lt Young never got the message. On his own ordered his men out. “I shall be the last man,” he declared, and with difficulty got his company moving toward Kohima. No one ever saw Young alive again, nor was his body identified. The 1st battalion, 58th regiment had also been dispatched from Ukhrul on the 24th and would cut the Imphal-Kohima road at Tuphema by March 30th.
After the disastrous battle at Sangshak, General Miyazaki ordered a battalion to head over to Pulomi, while the 3rd battalion, 58th regiment advanced to Kohima via Chakhabama and the rest of his unit advanced to Kohima using the road. Sato planned to launch a two-pronged assault against Kohima, with Colonel Fukunaga Ten’s 58th regiment from the south while the 138th regiment swung around Naga village to cut off the Dimapur road. This saw a race to feed units into Dimapur before the Japanese arrived. The first units of Major General Grover 2nd division arrived in piecemeal to Dimapur between April 1st and 11th. They came by small-gauge steam train arriving at Dimapur in a panic. The undefended base area expecting attack at any moment and riven with rumors of the impending arrival of the Japanese. Stopfords men were still several days away by the end of March, prompting Slim to order Brigadier Dermot Warren’s 161st brigade to rush over to Kohima. By April 3rd, Stopford established his HQ at Jorhat, where he made a disastrous blunder.
Stopford at this point was still under the belief the Japanese main objective was Dimapur. He had some false intelligence indicating Japanese units were at any moment in the process of outflanking Kohima. With this knowledge he ordered 161st to evacuate Kohima immediately. For the units currently at Kohima, they could not believe the order. Warren, Colonel Hugh Richards and the civilian Deputy Commissioner, Charles Pawsey - were aghast at, and vehemently protested the decision. When told that the Japanese were outflanking Kohima to the north Pawsey scoffed, retorting that if true, 'my Nagas would have told me'. Major General Ranking, believing that Stopford was making a mistake, went over the head of his new superior officer and called Slim directly by telephone to petition him to leave Warren at Kohima. General Slim, perhaps unwilling to overrule Stopford, and in any case as convinced as Stopford that Dimapur was the Japanese objective, confirmed Stopford's original order. Warren's 161st Brigade, which had been in the process of organizing the desperately needed defense of the ridge, left Kohima virtually undefended only one day before Japanese attacks began. Had Warren's men been allowed to remain where they were the trauma of the siege that followed would have been much reduced and the stranglehold that Sato was able to maintain on the vital road to Imphal for two long months would have been significantly weaker than it turned out to be.
Thus reluctantly, Warren pulled his men back towards Nichugard Pass, leaving only Colonel Richards with the original garrison. Meanwhile Sato’s unit were rapidly advancing through the mountainous terrain of the Naga Hills. Japanese and INA reconnaissance patrols were able to help the unit forage for food on the go, adding to their speed. Perhaps they took some time to eat turtle eggs like Wingate advised. Sorry just had to bring up that weird one, been stuck on my mind. On the morning of April 4th, the 58th regiment began assaulting the southern edge of Kohima at GPT ridge while Miyazaki’s other units were advancing through the hills and valleys leading into Kohima from the east. Colonel Hugh Richard alerted Stopford of the Japanese assault, who immediately realized his grave error. Stopford desperately sent Warren’s men back over to Kohima. Yet only 446 men of the 4th Royal West Kents would manage to get to Kohima in time to help her garrison. They dug in on Kohima Ridge, which is really a series of hills running north-south along the road to Imphal. Gently sloping saddles connect each feature. Since development as a supply base a year earlier, some of its various hills had become known by their function. From south to north, they were GPT “General Purpose Transport” Ridge, Jail Hill, DIS “Detail Issue Store”, FSD “Field Supply Depot”, Kuki Picquet, and Garrison Hill. A northwest extension of Garrison Hill housed a hospital and became known as IGH “Indian General Hospital” Spur. Thick woods, interspersed with the town’s and base’s structures, covered most of these hills. Garrison Hill was terraced and landscaped, and included the home, complete with clubhouse and tennis court of the deputy commissioner for the area, Charles Pawsey. The Imphal-Dimapur Road skirted the ridge to the east before turning west past Garrison Hill. Treasury Hill and a Naga Village settlement overlooked the ridge from the northeast; those heights also extended north to the hamlet of Merema. Southward loomed the imposing Pulebadze Mountain, whereas three miles to the west rose a knoll topped by the village of Jotsoma. Kohima Ridge thus was overlooked by surrounding heights: Pulebadze to the south, Jotsoma to the west, and the Naga Village/Merema to the east and northeast.
The same night they dug in on the ride, Sato had just launched attacks against Garrison Hill. The remainder of the brigade were not able to get in and would remain on Jotsoma ridge to the west, where Warren had emplaced his mountain guns to support the defenders. On April the 5th, the action kicked up with Fukunaga’s 58th regiment attacking from the south while a vanguard overcame the Shere Regiment’s sentries on the Naga Hill to the north, successfully securing a place for their artillery at Naga village. 4 mountain guns would support Miyazaki’s attack, also allowing the Japanese to seize the GPT ridge. In a surprise raid, elements of the 3rd battalion, 58th regiment were able to grab the old town part of Kohima and Treasury Hill. As a result of this, Miyazaki wrongly assumed the enemy had simply withdrawn from Kohima, so he ordered his men to begin an advance upon Cheswema. This in turn gave the defenders some time to reinforce their lines. Japanese pressure on the perimeter increased on the morning of April 6, with repeated attacks by the 58th Regiment on Jail Hill. Heavy artillery and mortar fire quickly denuded trees of their foliage, snapping branches and scattering jagged splinters to accompany the whine and hiss of exploding shrapnel. By 11am the surviving defenders were forced off Jail Hill and down into the steep valley through which ran the road, and then up into the relative safety of the trees on DIS Hill, where Major Shaw's C Company were desperately digging in. The Japanese attack was relentless and, although they secured Jail Hill dominating the south-eastern edge of the Kohima Ridge, they suffered extensive casualties, including Captain Nagaya, the commander of 3rd battalion, 58th Regiment, who was killed. Major Donald Easten was also ordered to retake Jail Hill with D Company, 4th Royal West Kents, but by now the Japanese had already dug deeply into the hillside and could not be ejected without considerable expenditure of life. Easten took his company and dug them in around FSD Hill.
Since Jail Hill dominated the southern edge of the ridge defensive lines, the disappearing tree cover quickly became a problem for the defenders who were becoming more and more visible to the enemy. It got some bad, the defenders were soon forced to only move positions at night. A company of the 4/7th Rajputs were able to reinforce Kohima by the end of the night, yet overall now 2500 defenders were surrounded by over 15,000 Japanese. The lost of GPT and Jail Hill also meant the defenders had lost access to water, excluding a small spring on Garrison Hill. Richards was forced to limit the men to a single pint of water per day. On the night of the 6th, a company of the 2nd Battalion, 58th Regiment launched a frontal attack against DIS Hill screaming wildly. The fire from the awaiting Royal West Kents scythed into the attackers, as did bombs from Sergeant Victor King's mortars, landing within meters of the West Kent positions. Miyazaki kept sending more and more men, until some infiltrated the defenders positions ending in a confused hand to hand combat brawl. By dawn on the 7th, a counterattack from FSD Hill would be broken by the ferocious Japanese machine-gun and artillery fire. Sergeant-Major Haines led a spirited attack against these positions, dashing 37 meters up the hill with a mixed group of West Kents and Gurkhas, bayonets fixed and lobbing grenades amongst the bashas. Those Japanese who ran were cut down by waiting Bren guns; those who stayed put were burned alive as the thin structures caught fire. The bakery, whose large brick ovens in peacetime produced several thousand loaves of bread each day, was more impervious to these tactics, but combat engineers destroyed the doors with the help of large quantities of gun cotton. Instead of merely blowing in the doors the ensuing explosion destroyed the entire building, only the brick ovens inside withstanding the blast. Escaping Japanese were brought down by rifle fire. Unusually, two Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner, and although one died later of his wounds, the other provided details about the strength and dispositions of the attacking forces. Captain Shiro Sato, Nagaya's successor in charge of 3rd, 58th Regiment, was killed. Over 60 Japanese were killed in this struggle alone, leading the men to mutter among themselves that this was a worse ordeal than Sangshak.
One of the problems now encountered by the men of C and D Companies of the Royal West Kents was the fact that hundreds of bodies lay littered across the position, some of friends but mostly of Japanese, attracting clouds of slow-moving bluebottles that feasted on the carpet of corpses covering the ground. Attempts were made to remove bodies where it was possible, but snipers and the sheer number meant that it was not possible to dispose of them all. As the days went by the effects of artillery bombardment dispersed some of the remains, with the result that DIS Hill became an unpleasant place to defend at best, and injurious to health at worst. The West Kents attempted to burn the bodies at night, but this had a poor effect on morale as the appalling smell of burning flesh drifted across the position. Where they could, the Japanese cremated their dead.
Realizing his enemy was strongly entrenched, Miyazaki now decided to order his 3rd battalion to turn back. Meanwhile the bulk of Torikai’s forces were just reaching the battlefront, so Miyazaki ordered his 1st battalion to reinforce their attack. Sato was under the belief they would be capturing the ridge at any moment, so he ordered Torikai to cut off the Kohima-Dimapur road, within the vicinity of Zubza. Sato also dispatched the reserved 124th regiment to Cheswema to get ready for an operation in the north. Torikai’s 2nd battalion advanced into the Dzuzu valley, and their 6th company occupied Zubza, effectively cutting off Warren’s base at Jotsoma. During that night the Japanese launched both real and 'jitter' attacks against the southern perimeter. During the next morning it was discovered, Japanese soldiers had infiltrated back onto DIS Hill during the confusion of the night, placing soldiers and a machine gun in a bunker on the top of the hill. Despite the Japanese machine guns posted on top of the hill, a hero would emerge to knock them out. A fearless 29-year-old Lance-Corporal John Harman demonstrated the type of behavior that was to lead within days to the award of a Victoria Cross, and his death. Realizing that the Japanese machine gun could cause untold damage if unchecked he crawled alone up the hill, standing up at the last minute to charge the Japanese-held bunker. Miraculously the enemy fire tore into the empty air above his head, and Harman reached the bunker door, coolly extracted the pin from a grenade, released the firing lever, counted to three, on a four-second fuse and lobbed it inside. The occupants were killed instantly and Harman returned triumphant with the captured machine gun down the hill to the cheers of his comrades.
The Japanese would launch attacks through the day, gradually pushing the defenders up the hills towards Kohima. General Mutaguchi then personally ordered Sato to continue past Kohima and seize Dimapur. Now Sato and Mutaguchi did not get along well, but he reluctantly obeyed the command, sending his 3rd battalion, 138t regiment along the Merema track to Bokajan. Yet all of a sudden General Kawabe, countermanded the order and instead ordered Sato’s battalion to rapidly be recalled. This was one of those famed “what if” moments. What if Sato had turned a Nelsonian blind eye to the counter order, or if he had delayed its official receipt for another 24 hours? Sato was apparently happy to obey Kawabe and withdraw to Kohima partly because his deep-seated animosity toward Mutaguchi led him to assume the army commander's demands were motivated solely by visions of military glory. Sato's hatred of Mutaguchi blinded him to the strategic possibilities offered by continuing his offensive through to Dimapur, and lost for the Japanese a crucial opportunity for victory in 1944. The failure to secure Dimapur while the British were in a state of confusion at the speed and scale of Mutaguchi's march on Delhi was indeed, as General Slim recognized, one of the great missed opportunities of the Burma war. It led directly to the failure of the Kohima thrust, and contributed to the collapse of the entire Operation. It was the consequence of Sato's lack of strategic imagination, framed by Kawabe's rejection of what he regarded as an attempt by Mutaguchi to secure for himself undying glory. What he and Sato for that matter failed entirely to see was that Mutaguchi was right. The capture of Dimapur might have been the decisive strategic movement of the campaign leading to a dramatic worsting of the British reminiscent of Malaya and Burma in 1942. Despite the megalomania and terrible planning on Mutaguchi’s part for even initiating Operation U-GO, to not try and make it work was even more criminal.
On the morning of the 9th, the Japanese once again managed to infiltrate the DIS Hill and again corporal Harman lept into action and mounted a solo attack to remove the threat. Covered by two Bren guns firing from his left and his right, Harman dashed up the hill. Frantically the Japanese returned fire but in their excitement fired wide. Harman reached the trench and, standing 4 meters to its front and firing his Lee Enfield from the hip, shot four Japanese dead, before jumping into the trench and bayoneting the fifth. He then stood up, triumphantly holding the captured enemy machine gun above his head, before throwing it to the ground. The cheers of his comrades reverberated around the hill. Harman then nonchalantly began to walk back down the slope. Unfortunately he had forgotten that with the denuded foliage he was in full view of the Japanese positions on Jail Hill. Unheeding of the shouted cries of his comrades to run, he leisurely made his way back down to his weapon pit, only to be struck by a burst of machine-gun fire in his back just as he reached safety. Donald Easten ran out into the Japanese fire, and dragged Harman into a trench. Within a few minutes, however, this extraordinarily brave man was dead.
On that day, Warren dispatched the 1/1st Punjabs to break through towards Kohima, but they ran into a number of log-covered bunkers at Piquet Hill, held by the 6th Company, 138th Regiment. The Japanese fired upon them causing 25 casualties by the day's end. Upon the ridge the killing continued. Large numbers of fiercely brave Japanese from the 58th Regiment were killed by the remorseless chatter of the British Bren guns, as during the night three successive assaults were made on C and D Companies of the Royal West Kents, the Japanese being denied success by the interlocking fire of eight Bren guns, whose red-hot barrels had to be changed repeatedly. Casualties on both sides were high, the Japanese attempting to gain access to the hill from the road by use of ladders, seemingly unperturbed by their losses. On the northern side of Garrison Hill the 138th Regiment again launched attacks against A Company. The attack was held, Bren guns, bayonets and grenades in the darkness bloodily halting Japanese ambitions. Victor King's mortars fired in support, the bombs landing with superb accuracy in front of Maj. Tom Kenyon's positions. It had seemed for a while that sheer weight of numbers would overwhelm the much-reduced A Company, but the reliable Brens, considerable reserves of grenades, the accuracy of King's mortars and the determined courage of the Royal West Kents denied the penetration so desperately desired by the Japanese.
Low on ammunition and suffering heavy casualties, the decision was made to abandon DIS and FSD Hill’s on the night of the 10th. To make matters worse the monsoon rains had come early, and heavy, driving rain on 10th, together with the effects of battle and of sleep deprivation, had pushed men to the edge of exhaustion. Tea was rationed to half a mug per man. Fortunately, the rain somewhat made up for the acute lack of water within the perimeter, men lying back in their weapon pits and trenches to allow the rain to fall directly into parched, open mouths. It was found that a trickle of water was available from a pipe leading onto the road behind the ADS, behind the Japanese positions. Dangerous nightly journeys were made, through hundreds of wounded lying in the open, down the slope to the road, to fill hundreds of water bottles.
The exhausted men made their way off the hills under Japanese sniper and mortar fire. On the 11th, A company over at Garrison Hill were still managing to hold strong against numerous assaults over the tennis court. During the night they were relieved by B company. Meanwhile Grover had finally assembled his 2nd division at Dimapur and dispatched the Cameron Highlanders and 2nd battalion, Durham light infantry with Lee-Grant tank support to open a road back up to Warren’s HQ. The next day, while B company was repelling more assault, the 1st battalion, 58th regiment advanced upon Jotsoma from Pulomi, but could not penetrate through the defensive line. At the same time, the 3rd Battalion, 138th Regiment advanced to Khabvuma, though and was likewise unable to break through towards the Kohima-Dimapur Road. On the 13th, which would become known to the besieged British garrison as “black thirteenth”, B company continued to resist suicidal Japanese assaults across the tennis court, Japanese artillery managed to kill many men atop the IGH Spur.
Casualties were mounting, the Royal West Kents had lost a total of 150 men by this point. 3 Dakotas had tried air supplying, but they accidentally dropped atop the Japanese position on Kohima Ridge. Over at FDS Hill, the situation was quite desperate as the Japanese were squeezing the British from the ridge and to prevent them from using the supplies raining from the sky. Captain Mitchell of the Rajputs was killed on the morning of 12th, and furious counterattacks against the Japanese who had infiltrated amongst C and D Companies of the Royal West Kents failed to remove the intruders; A Company, after their short rest on Kuki, now moved to support C and D Companies. That night the Japanese attempted to rush FSD Hill. The defenders were ordered to wait until they could see the whites of the Japanese eyes before opening fire. During a lull in the fighting Private Peacock from A Company dropped off, exhausted with fatigue. When he came round he discovered that he was sharing his trench with a Japanese officer who had assumed that Peacock was dead. Unable to find his rifle Peacock leapt at the officer and strangled him after a fierce struggle with his bare hands. Then, to make sure, he ran him through with the man's own sword
By the 14th, the Assam Rifles relieved B company over at Garrison Hill, where Richards commemorated his remaining men for the bulwark defense. “By your efforts you have prevented the Japanese from attaining this objective. All attempts to overrun the garrison have been frustrated by your determination and devotion to duty…”. Meanwhile a patrol of the 4/7th Rajputs had advanced up the western valley. The patrol had the unfortunate result of raising some expectations of relief on the ridge. To the fighting men still desperately resisting every Japanese encroachment this made little difference to their lives. Instead, life and death continued their seemingly arbitrary, parallel journeys. The shattered hillside was now almost bare of foliage, the remaining trees standing forlornly, others leaning drunkenly where shells had smashed the trunk or branches. The ground was a churned morass of mud, which the defenders shared with rotting corpses, excrement and the inevitable detritus of war: scattered equipment, discarded helmets, broken weapons and unexploded shells. Yet the troops all knew that they had achieved a remarkable feat of endurance, and resistance. On the 15th the 1/1st Punjabs had finally broken through Piquet Hill and reopened the road to the garrisons perimeter. By the 16th, the 5th Brigade linked up with Warren’s troops for the first time.The Japanese did not let up at all. On the 17th, they finally seized FSD Hill and stormed Kuki Piquet, overcoming some depleted defenders with their sheer weight of numbers. It seemed the exhausted Kohima Garrison were doomed, now crammed into a small area. Then B Company, 1/1st Punjab with Lee-Grant tanks arrived on the 18th, just in time to give the boys a fighting chance. Under heavy Japanese sniper and artillery fire, Warren and Grover’s men advanced towards the besieged ridge positions. The 1st battalion, Royal Berkshire regiment made it to Kohima on the 20th to relieve Richards spent garrison.
On 19 April, the day before the first of the relieving troops made their way onto the position, Hurribombers strafed the Japanese positions, Dakotas dropped ammunition, water and food accurately on the ridge and the 25-pdrs of the 2nd Division pounded away relentlessly, firing from Zubza. The relief took place in the nick of time. The men of the 1st Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, could not believe their eyes or noses as they climbed up onto Summerhouse Hill on the morning of April 20. Warned by anxious defenders to keep their heads down, many gagged at the repulsive smell of death and excrement that hung like a repressive fog over the position, weighing the hill down with the stench of horror. As Japanese bullets and shells continued to fall the weary veterans of the siege made their way down the gulleys adjacent to the IGH spur, strewn with Japanese corpses, to waiting trucks, guarded by the Lee/Grants. The fresh relief troops on the road were astonished by what they saw when the red-eyed, unshaven survivors made their way quietly out of the trees, but were in no doubt that they were witnessing the end of the first phase of one of the grimmest struggles of the entire war. The Indian troops called out 'Shabash, Royal West Kents!' in warm acknowledgement of what all the defenders of the Kohima Ridge had achieved, congratulating the tired, bearded scarecrows even as shells fell among the convoy, injuring some of the wounded again and killing some, even as they were being lifted into the trucks. As the trucks crawled down the pitted road towards Jotsoma, and then Zubza, before making their slow way down through the green mountains into hot, steamy Dimapur, the exhausted survivors had long collapsed into deep, delicious sleep. Their ordeal was over.
After 16 days of brutal siege, 278 men had been killed or wounded in a small stand, but one that would prove decisive for the CBI theater. Yet that is all for today on the Burma front as we now need to hope over to the Admiralties. The campaign for the Admiralty islands was coming to an end, now General Swift’s division just had to mop up the islands of Los Negros and Manus. Over on Los Negros, the 5th Cavalry at Papitalai had been pushing west towards the Papitalai Mission since March the 14th. They were still encountering heavy resistance, requiring support from heavy artillery and aerial bombardment.
At 7:30am on the 15th, Troop A advanced after artillery and mortar concentrations, towards their third objective without any resistance. Troop A dug in there and Troop B sent out patrols 200 yards to the front. Yet still no opposition was encountered. Difficulties of supplying the troops over an extended supply line which consisted of 1 and a half miles of narrow, rutted, and slippery trail prevented further advance. Troop C, aided by a section furnished by the 82d Field Artillery Battalion, took 5 hours for a round trip. The 1st Squadron's last objective was the largest knob, Hill 260, on which it was now estimated were 100 well-entrenched Japanese. By the 17th, sufficient supplies had been brought up to enable Troop C, which had relieved Troop A, to push on toward this knob. After the usual artillery and mortar preparation, Troop C, protected in the rear by Troop B which was dug in on the third objective, advanced to within 50 yards of the hill crest before being stopped by machine-gun and rifle fire. Squadron commander Lt. Col. Charles E. Brady then dispatched Troop B north to envelop the enemy from his left flank. Although Troop B had to cut its way laboriously and noisily through the jungle, the envelopment was highly successful. The Japanese put up little resistance and both troops moved onto the hill and secured it by 1:10pm. About 40 or 50 dead Japanese were counted, although the total, which was impossible to determine in the jungle, was undoubtedly much higher. The 1st Squadron's losses in the day's attack were four killed and seven wounded.
Meanwhile, patrols from the 12th cavalry had been going around inland in the region southwest of Papitalai Mission and Lombrum. They found more resistance than anticipated. After failing to connect the perimeters, Troops A and B were landed at Chaporowan Point on the 16th where more patrols advanced along the coast, also finding some resistance. Over on the Rossum Road, Troop F of the 7th cavalry were seeing their fare share of resistance at a position 800 yards down the road. Though the cavalrymen were able to push through to the northern edge of Old Rossum, the Japanese fought so hard, Troop F was forced to withdraw. Because of this action, the position was bombed on the 21st before a full assault was launched by the 1st Squadron, 7th cavalry. This time the cavalrymen were able to secure the northern edge of Old Rossum with the support of artillery and tanks. On the 23rd, the squadron pressed their attack, gradually edging through Old Rossum. To gain 1000 yards here the Americans suffered 68 casualties, then on the 24th they yet again had to withdraw undering increasingly heavy Japanese fire. Finally on the 25th, the 1st Squadron, 8th cavalry relieved the battered men. After a heavy artillery and aerial bombardment, the Japanese defenders were finally broken. That day saw the 8th cavalry suffered 7 dead, 29 wounded, for the Japanese it was close to 100. Overall the 2nd Brigade had suffered 36 deaths, 128 wounded in the week of fighting over the Rossum area, they estimated they had killed 200 Japanese. The 2nd Brigade would patrol inland for the next two months, penetrating deep jungles, swamps and high mountains. In the end they would count a total of 586 dead Japanese on Manus.
Meanwhile General Chase ordered a brigade to complete the occupation of Los Negros on March 21st. The 1st Squadron, 5th cavalry and 2nd Squadron, 12th cavalry attacked southwest towards some highground, due west of Hill 260. Troop C of the 12th cavalry advanced towards Juarez Village, supported by Troop B who performed an encircling maneuver against the retreating enemy. The 2nd Squadron, 5th cavalry would manage to clear the southern portion of Los Negros with an assault against Palapi Hill. All of Chase’s units were successful in their assaults, though they faced tough resistance. For the following days, the Japanese would fight back against the invaders and by the 25th, over 500 of them paid the price with their lives. Since February 19th, 1917 Japanese had died on Los Negros, while the 1st Brigade had suffered 143 killed and 408 wounded.
There were also mop up operations against the outlying islands with the 1st Squadron, 7th cavalry landing on Pityilu island on the 30th; the 1st Squadron, 12th cavalry assaulted Koruniat and Ndrilo islands on the 1st of april and the 2nd Squadron, 12th cavalry attacked Rambutyo on the 3rd. The 7th cavalry faced heavy resistance from a 60 man garrison on Pityilu, the 12th cavalry found no Japanese on Koruniat and Ndrilo and only a handful of Japanese were found on Rambutyo. On the 9th of april, the 1st Squadron, 12th cavalry landed on Pak island and with that the liberation of the Admiralty islands was complete. In total, General Krueger reported 326 killed, 1189 wounded and 4 missing while also counting a total of 3280 Japanese killed and 75 captured. General Krueger would go on to partially explain the heavy enemy losses in the Admiralties operation were due to, "Our troops were gaining superiority on the ground against an enemy whose tactical knowledge envisioned only the offensive." Allied tactics of guaranteeing naval, air, and artillery superiority to the troops in each operation were making the heavy proportion of Japanese casualties an expected result in the Pacific. In the Admiralties invasion, fire from destroyers kept the enemy under cover during the landing and the artillery gave the troopers an enormous advantage against an enemy who possessed only two 75-mm mountain guns and one 70-mm howitzer. Bad weather had greatly restricted air operations during the first week after the invasion, and the weather probably accounted in part for the weakness of enemy air defense throughout the campaign; but the constant pounding of Japanese air bases within range of the Admiralties was a more important factor. General MacArthur's decision to send a limited number of men and ships to take an enemy stronghold far in advance of Allied-held territory, and within striking distance of enemy planes, had proved worth the risks involved. At a small cost, the neutralization of Rabaul and Kavieng was completed; and from the new base in the Admiralties, Allied air and naval forces could now launch surprise attacks on the Dutch New Guinea coast and could threaten essential enemy sea lanes within a 1500-mile radius including the Marianas, the east coast of Mindanao, and the southern limits of the Celebes Sea.
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Fate had rolled her dice yet again, and the Japanese had lost another decisive moment whereupon they could have perhaps changed the entire war in the India-Burma front. Likewise General Douglas MacArthur gambled by attacking the Admiralty Islands, but it would pay off heavily. It seems the allies were winning with every hand dealt to them.
