KOHIMA,
India — Soldiers died by the dozens, by the hundreds and then by the
thousands in a battle here 70 years ago. Two bloody weeks of fighting
came down to just a few yards across an asphalt tennis court.
Night
after night, Japanese troops charged across the court’s white lines,
only to be killed by almost continuous firing from British and Indian
machine guns. The Battle of Kohima and Imphal was the bloodiest of World
War II in India, and it cost Japan much of its best army in Burma.
But
the battle has been largely forgotten in India as an emblem of the
country’s colonial past. The Indian troops who fought and died here were
subjects of the British Empire. In this remote, northeastern corner of
India, more recent battles with a mix of local insurgencies among tribal
groups that have long sought autonomy have made remembrances of former
glories a luxury.
Now,
as India loosens its security grip on this region and a fragile peace
blossoms among the many combatants here, historians are hoping that this
year’s anniversary reminds the world of one of the most extraordinary
fights of the Second World War. The battle was voted last year as the winner of a contest by Britain’s National Army Museum, beating out Waterloo and D-Day as Britain’s greatest battle, though it was overshadowed at the time by the Normandy landings.
“The
Japanese regard the battle of Imphal to be their greatest defeat ever,”
said Robert Lyman, author of “Japan’s Last Bid for Victory: The
Invasion of India 1944.” “And it gave Indian soldiers a belief in their
own martial ability and showed that they could fight as well or better
than anyone else.”
The
battlefields in what are now the Indian states of Nagaland and Manipur —
some just a few miles from the border with Myanmar, which was then
Burma — are also well preserved because of the region’s longtime
isolation. Trenches, bunkers and airfields remain as they were left 70
years ago — worn by time and monsoons but clearly visible in the jungle.
This
mountain city also boasts a graceful, terraced military cemetery on
which the lines of the old tennis court are demarcated in white stone.
A
closing ceremony for a three-month commemoration is planned for June 28
in Imphal, and representatives from the United States, Australia,
Japan, India and other nations have promised to attend.
“The
Battle of Imphal and Kohima is not forgotten by the Japanese,” said
Yasuhisa Kawamura, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in
New Delhi, who is planning to attend the ceremony. “Military historians
refer to it as one of the fiercest battles in world history.”
A
small but growing tour industry has sprung up around the battlefields
over the past year, led by a Hemant Katoch, a local history buff.
But
whether India will ever truly celebrate the Battle of Kohima and Imphal
is unclear. India’s founding fathers were divided on whether to support
the British during World War II, and India’s governments have generally
had uneasy relationships even with the nation’s own military. So far,
only local officials and a former top Indian general have agreed to
participate in this week’s closing ceremony.
“India
has fought six wars since independence, and we don’t have a memorial
for a single one,” said Mohan Guruswamy, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a public policy organization in India. “And at Imphal, Indian troops died, but they were fighting for a colonial government.”
Rana T. S. Chhina, secretary of the Center for Armed Forces Historical Research
in New Delhi, said that top Indian officials were participating this
year in some of the 100-year commemorations of crucial battles of World
War I.
“I
suppose we may need to let Imphal and Kohima simmer for a few more
decades before we embrace it fully,” he said. “But there’s hope.”
The battle began some two years after Japanese forces routed the British
in Burma in 1942, which brought the Japanese Army to India’s eastern
border. Lt. Gen. Renya Mutaguchi persuaded his Japanese superiors to
allow him to attack British forces at Imphal and Kohima in hopes of
preventing a British counterattack. But General Mutaguchi planned to
push farther into India to destabilize the British Raj, which by then
was already being convulsed by the independence movement led by Mahatma
Gandhi. General Mutaguchi brought a large number of Indian troops
captured after the fall of Malaya and Singapore who agreed to join the
Japanese in hopes of creating an independent India.
The
British were led by Lt. Gen. William Slim, a brilliant tactician who
re-formed and retrained the Eastern Army after its crushing defeat in
Burma. The British and Indian forces were supported by planes commanded
by the United States Army Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell. Once the Allies
became certain that the Japanese planned to attack, General Slim
withdrew his forces from western Burma and had them dig defensive
positions in the hills around Imphal Valley, hoping to draw the Japanese
into a battle far from their supply lines.
But
none of the British commanders believed that the Japanese could cross
the nearly impenetrable jungles around Kohima in force, so when a full
division of nearly 15,000 Japanese troops came swarming out of the
vegetation on April 4, the town was only lightly defended by some 1,500
British and Indian troops.
The Japanese encirclement
meant that those troops were largely cut off from reinforcements and
supplies, and a bitter battle eventually led the British and Indians to
withdraw into a small enclosure next to a tennis court.
The Japanese, without air support or supplies, eventually became exhausted, and the Allied forces soon pushed them out
of Kohima and the hills around Imphal. On June 22, British and Indian
forces finally cleared the last of the Japanese from the crucial road
linking Imphal and Kohima, ending the siege.
The Japanese 15th Army, 85,000 strong for the invasion of India, was essentially destroyed, with 53,000 dead and missing. Injuries and illnesses took many of the rest. There were 16,500 British casualties.
Ningthoukhangjam
Moirangningthou, 83, still lives in a house at the foot of a hill that
became the site of one of the fiercest battles near Imphal. Mr.
Ningthoukhangjam watched as three British tanks slowly destroyed every
bunker constructed by the Japanese. “We called them ‘iron elephants,’ ”
he said of the tanks. “We’d never seen anything like that before.”
Andrew
S. Arthur was away at a Christian high school when the battle started.
By the time he made his way home to the village of Shangshak, where one
of the first battles was fought, it had been destroyed and his family
was living in the jungle, he said.
He
recalled encountering a wounded Japanese soldier who could barely
stand. Mr. Arthur said he took the soldier to the British, who treated
him.
“Most of my life, nobody ever spoke about the war,” he said. “It’s good that people are finally talking about it again.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/world/asia/a-largely-indian-victory-in-world-war-ii-mostly-forgotten-in-india.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld&_r=5
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