Remembering Kohima, Britain's greatest battle

When you go home, Tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, We gave our today.

These undying words are spoken during Remembrance Day ceremonies around the world. They remind us of the ultimate sacrifice made by generations before us, who gave their lives for their fellow countrymen. That we enjoy the freedoms of today is due to their courage, and more importantly that the horrors of war do not return in our lifetimes.

Yet this memorial was first etched out on a block of local Naga stone in a remote hilltop in the northeast frontier of India. Far from Whitehall, far from Westminster, far from the battlefields and war cemeteries across Europe, these words of the poet Edmonds were chosen in hope that the world would not forget what happened in this far-flung corner of the British Empire during the Second World War, at the foothills of the Himalayas, at a place called Kohima.

What happened here during that critical moment in history is now referred to as Britain’s greatest ever battle, and revisiting it three-quarters of a century later during Remembrance Day 2020, you can understand why.

Defending the last post

During the spring and summer of 1944, 84,000 troops of the Japanese Imperial Army poured into northeast India from Burma. The Japanese had stormed their way up British Malaya and South East Asia, forcing the British troops to retreat back to a small corner of hill stations in the northeast of India, where they were determined to make their final stand to defend British interests in South Asia. If they were to be defeated here, then the entire Indian subcontinent would have been laid open for the Japanese who would have had a direct route all the way to Delhi, thereby drastically changing the course of the war and history as a result. 

The immediate prize for the Japanese would have been the densely populated and fertile plains of Bengal and the Brahmaputra valley. Home to tens of millions of people and the location of key Allied supply bases, if large-scale fighting were to take place here, it would have been deadly and catastrophic beyond imagination. This concern was not lost to the 14th Army, often referred to as Britain’s “Forgotten Army”, who stood in the way of a Japanese military machine which up until then seemed unstoppable.

Hand-to-hand fighting

Led by Lieutenant-General Bill Slim and composed of British, Indian, Gurkha, Burmese and African soldiers, the 14th Army was the largest Commonwealth Army ever formed. During the siege, defence and subsequent victory at Kohima, a small division of 2,500 Commonwealth soldiers held off a much larger force of 15,000 Japanese troops. At the onset of the battle, the British had been pushed all the way back until the only distance separating the trenches of both sides was the tennis court of the local District Commissioner’s bungalow. Fighting continued until all that remained was hand-to-hand combat between the rival troops, the fiercest close-quarter fighting seen anywhere during the entire Second World War. Over the course of a couple of weeks, inch by inch the British and Commonwealth forces gained ground until they has secured the ridges surrounding Kohima. 

Kohima, also labelled as the ‘Stalingrad of the East’, was the turning point during the Burma Campaign in northeast India, and one of the most pivotal moments of the entire Second World War. In fact, it was the first time the Japanese had lost and retreated from a land battle during the war, which proved to be as big a mental blow to them as it was a military one.

This victory against the odds, and the blood-and-earth nature of the fighting that took place, is why the National Army Museum designated Kohima as Britain’s greatest ever battle, ahead of the better-known battles of Waterloo and the Normandy D-Day landings. Despite the magnitude of its importance and how it determined the eventual Allied victory in Asia, for many of us Kohima is the forgotten battle of the Second World War.

The scale of human loss during the battles of Kohima and Imphal, on both the Allied and Japanese sides, is difficult to comprehend. Over the course of just 3 months over 50,000 Japanese and over 15,000 British Commonwealth soldiers lost their lives on the plains, ridges and hilltops of the Naga and Manipuri hills.

What makes the unrivalled suffering and loss at Kohima somewhat less horrific to contemplate is the unparalleled levels of bravery, fraternity and bondship between the men of the 14th Army during the entire ordeal. The 14th Army was one of the most diverse ever assembled, with over 40 languages being spoken and with all major world faiths represented. Coming from all across Britain and the Commonwealth, they become one and the same as they fought together in those hilltop trenches. Following the end of the battle in August 1944, a number of them received the Military Cross – bearing surnames such as Rafiq, Adams, Vickers, Singh, Khan, Wright.

Why we must remember

Many of us would not have heard of the Battle of Kohima. In fact, this entire chapter of the war and the Burma Campaign is often referred to as the “forgotten front”. Growing up in London, I was not told the story of Kohima. My history books at school did not mention the central role played by Commonwealth troops from British India, Africa and the Caribbean in the Allied war effort. As far as I knew, this was a war fought and won exclusively by white British, European and American soldiers. For this reason, many people from ethnic minority communities across Britain do not feel that Remembrance Day ceremonies and the wider commemoration of the war effort includes them and their history.

This has to change.

Modern day Britain is a multicultural, ethnically diverse and globally-representative melting pot of people and ideas. The descendants of many of the Commonwealth soldiers that fought in Kohima are today part of multicultural communities up and down the country. Yet we still have a long way to go to reflect the histories of all these people in our combined national narrative, and how we choose to see ourselves in the 21st century.

Kohima is a day’s car ride from the region of Sylhet where many British Asian families have their ancestral roots, including mine. The region is now part of modern-day Bangladesh, but in 1944 was part of the state of Assam in British-controlled India, which is less than 50 miles away from Kohima. To know that so many of our grandparents and great-grandparents played a defining role in the defence of British India, yet not be remembered for the sacrifices they made shows that much more work needs to be done.

If we desire to live in a diverse society which feels truly inclusive of all, then we must not only remember what happened at Kohima but we most never forget why.