"Walker, go and tell Sparta that her children lie here to fulfill her laws" . That splendid phrase of Simonides that, in its multiple translations, constitutes the epigraph of the monument to Leonidas at Thermopylae, is too juicy not to take advantage of it in other war memorials with the corresponding changes. This is what happens, for example, with the one that appears as an epitaph in honor of the 1,420 fallen of the British 2nd Division whose remains rest in a war cemetery in India and that reads as follows:«When you return home, account on our part that for his tomorrow we gave our today» . Remember the tough Battle of Kohima.
In the spring of 1944 Japan, like Germany, was steadily losing ground to the relentless Allied advance. Since the resounding defeats in the Coral Sea and Midway, a true turning point, he lost control of the sea and the air. On land, the infantry was still capable of fighting due to its extraordinary combative spirit and that is why it would maintain its presence in Southeast Asia until September 1945.
However, the British were determined to retake Burma and launched an offensive from two points:the north, with the help of the Chinese X-Force, and the south. The Japanese resisted valiantly and had the help of the monsoon but it was a matter of time before they ended up losing what they had won, so they designed an ambitious plan that should not only stop the enemy but also divert them from their objective. It was called Operation U-Go and it consisted of invading India to keep the British IV Corps busy and, at the same time, encourage the Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army) to start an independence insurrection.
The INA, as it was also known, had been founded during the Japanese invasion of Burma and was considered the armed wing of the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind , i.e. the Provisional Government of Free India. It was led by the nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose, who we already talked about here in the article dedicated to Saraswathi Rajamani, the youngest spy in history, and was made up of some 12,000 Indian prisoners of war who had fallen into the hands of the Japanese and equipped by them; not very well and that is why they never went beyond practicing minor guerrilla actions.
Operation U-Go was based on attacking Imfal and Kohima, capitals of the states of Manipur and Nagaland respectively. The capture of these two cities, key strategic points in the communications between India and Burma, would also cut off US supplies to Chiang Kai Sek. The person in charge of putting it into practice was Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, commander of the 15th Army and veteran of the war against the Red Army in Siberia who had also been military attaché in France and military governor of Beijing, before taking part in the invasion of Malaysia, Philippines and Burma.
But Mutaguchi expanded the plan to a possible invasion of India that would encourage local nationalists to take up arms. Although the entire General Staff did not like the idea, it was finally approved in early 1944, and the 31st Division (formed by the 58th, 124th, 38th and 31st Mountain Artillery regiments) commanded by Lieutenant General Kotoku Sato was assigned to it. This soldier, who had also fought the Soviets, was not only unhappy with the role he had played in the war until then, but was also in conflict with his superior and considered that Operation U-Go had all the numbers to end up in failure.
Regardless, he obeyed orders. His mission was to take Kohima, pushing the British north to Dimapur. Thus, on March 15, the 31st Division crossed the Chindwin River and advanced through the jungle for almost a hundred kilometers before spreading out in three wings. The left, led by General Shigesaburo Miyazaki, met Brigadier Maxwell Hope-Thompson's Indian 50th Parachute Brigade, engaged in battle for six days and forced their retreat with hundreds of casualties on both sides. Despite the victory, this meant a week's delay towards their target, which was Kohima.
The British were aware of the Japanese plans through captured documents but thought that, given the dense jungle, the enemy would only send one regiment, when, as we have seen, it was a whole division. That was the unpleasant discovery made on the ground by Lieutenant General William Slim, who barely had a battalion, a regiment and several loose platoons of paramilitaries. Hastily, he called for reinforcements to protect Imfal; he only received part of the 5th Indian Infantry Division, since the 161st Brigade and the 24th Mountain Artillery were entrenched in Dimapur, a city considered to be the most important.
In fact, they considered that the attack on Kohima was just a diversion and that the main target was Dimapur, so Slim would only have to face a smaller detachment. However, Sato laid siege to Kohima on April 6, ignoring Mutaguchi's order to continue towards Dimapur and Slim, who had sent a good part of his reinforcements to Imfal and found himself clearly outnumbered. Attempts to send aid failed as the Japanese dominated the surrounding heights and Slim had to face the situation with barely 2,500 troops, of which a thousand were not even soldiers.
The Japanese artillery pounded the position hard and the infantry captured the water reservoirs, so the defenders could only take supplies at night from a nearby spring. The fighting was brutal, with the trenches so close together that hand bombs could be dropped directly into them, forcing the Japanese to gain every meter at great cost, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat; for example, the Battle of the Tennis Court was so named because both sides were separated only by a tennis court. No wonder Kohima was later known as the Stalingrad of the East.
The battle was also compared to that of Rorke's Drift in 1879 against the Zulu, due to the fierce and tenacious defense between decomposing corpses, of which the heroic performance of Corporal John Harman could be a good example:despite being only nineteen years old, he freed without help the furnaces -vital strategic point to avoid the fall of the position- and finished with 44 attackers before also being hit and losing his life, receiving the Victoria Cross posthumously. They all selflessly complied with their commander-in-chief's order not to surrender, knowing that defeat meant an open door to the invasion of India.
He was close. Luckily, reinforcements arrived for Slim on April 11, which equalized the forces and made it possible not only to relieve enemy pressure and relieve the defenders, but also to launch a counterattack. On the night of April 26, the important position of Garrison Hill was recovered and then the help of the RAF was decisive, both to bombard the enemy and to supply their troops and bring in troops (up to 12,000 men). Miyazaki built bunkers and had in his favor that the jungle and mud (the monsoon had started) forced the opponent's tanks to move slowly, but he had already lost the initiative.
The roles were reversed and now it was the British who had to regain ground at the price of blood. However, for a week the ridges held by the Japanese fell one by one. Once again, the tennis court became a no-man's land which, due to the failure of its conquest by assault, had to be leveled with cannon fire by a tank, dislodging its defenders on May 13. Witnesses said that the spectacle was Dantesque, with shattered corpses, rats and flies grazing, plus a burned floor full of potholes reminiscent of a landscape from the First World War.
And reinforcements continued to arrive to shore up the counteroffensive as the Japanese dug in at Naga Village and the Aradura Spur. There they resisted until the end of May, when the lack of provisions was decisive:it was supposed to be a lightning campaign, so Sato was only given food for three weeks, having to complete it with what was taken from the British; but these, realizing the move, bombed their own warehouses when they fell into Japanese hands.
The supply convoys sent by Mutaguchi only carried ammunition and Sato considered that his superiors were not aware of the dramatic situation they were going through, so considering that they had been left to their fate, he disobeyed the order -for him absurd- to join forces attacking Imfal and opted for withdrawal on June 1. That exposed Miyazaki, who also had to trudge back, blowing up bridges behind him.
As, pursued by the Indo-British, they retraced their steps hoping to find the previously organized supply lines, they found a terrible reality:the units had consumed everything available, both in food and medicine. Thus, Japanese casualties amounted to 5,764 men in combat alone, not counting the wounded, many of whom were finished off by their comrades due to the impossibility of giving them medical treatment, in compliance with bushido – and patients who died after malaria and beriberi. The enemy registered a significant amount as well:a total of 4,064 soldiers. The taking of Kohima had failed and the encirclement of Imfal was broken on June 22; the result of Operation U-Go was a disaster, just as Sato had predicted.
He was deposed by Mutaguchi, who accused him of premeditated treason and unequivocally handed him a revolver and a white band. Sato, outraged, refused to kill himself, claiming that he had saved his men from "a senseless annihilation" and demanding a court martial in which he hoped to justify himself and denounce the clumsiness of the commanders. He couldn't because 31st Division Lieutenant General Masakazu Kawabe ordered him declared incapacitated due to mental collapse in early July. He was returned to active duty months later and, after the war ended, he dedicated himself to helping the men he had under his command. Miyazaki, on the other hand, was promoted and placed in charge of the 54th Division.
As for Mutaguchi, the enormous losses of Operation U-Go, both human and material (he could not save a single tank or gun) had the opposite effect than expected and precipitated the fall of Burma in 1945. The defeat, considered the largest in the history of Japan (it even caused the resignation of Prime Minister Tojo), led to his dismissal, being forced into forced retirement in December 1944, although he was later put in charge of a military academy. At the end of the war he was extradited to Singapore to be tried for war crimes; he served three years in prison, being released in 1948. he died in 1966.
Finally, it should be noted that Slim, much appreciated by his soldiers, managed to keep the Indians loyal and won a brilliant victory that he attributed in part to Sato's lack of enthusiasm (he even had sarcasm that he forbade bombing his command post to that he was still alive). He participated in the reconquest of Burma, was promoted to general and then appointed Chief of Staff, showering him with honours, including being Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire and Knight of the Order of the Bath. He retired from military life in 1952 but would remain Governor of Australia (with an obscure allegation of child sexual abuse) until his final retirement. He died in 1970.