Road of Bones Read online

  By now the troops on Garrison Hill could see signs of fighting on the hills where 161 Brigade was trying to break through. The delay had been partly down to Sato’s original roadblock, Grover’s caution and the slowness of troops advancing into unfamiliar and difficult terrain. The 2nd Division commander feared being outflanked and having his line of communications cut, the perennial fear when facing the Japanese. Parties of the enemy were probing along his flanks, and captured Japanese plans showed that Sato wanted to occupy a ridge overlooking the main road. Japanese artillery could then wreak havoc on the advancing brigades. When he went forward to see Warren at Jotsoma on 16 April the latter was desperate to get his men into Kohima immediately, but Grover refused because of ‘lack of security of the right flank’ and because he wanted a proper reconnaissance. Rather than rush to save the garrison, he would ensure the safety of his advance; as Brigadier Hawkins had shown him, the ‘country is very big and difficult and rapidly absorbs large numbers of troops. It gives great advantage to defence.’

  The troops moving along the hills were facing the Naga Hills for the first time; the lack of experience slowed them. An intelligence officer with 4 Brigade wrote that it ‘seemed we had not patrolled enough to gain information, that the troops were too slow to advance after the artillery concentration and that it was doubtful whether we had attacked from the right direction’. Both Stopford and Grover were planning for the battle to retake Kohima Ridge and drive the Japanese back to the Chindwin; rescuing the garrison was not incidental to this, but neither man would alter what they considered to be the best plan for the larger battle.

  From his headquarters, miles away in Comilla, Slim studied the battle reports and radio messages with concern. The Japanese had caught him unawares at the beginning. He had been saved then by the ferocity of the defence at Sangshak, Jessami and Kohima, by the airlift of reinforcements from the Arakan, and by General Kawabe’s fateful order to Mutaguchi not to attack Dimapur and the railway. But having got heavy reinforcements on the road towards Kohima, he now risked seeing the campaign descend into a lengthy slogging match. In his memoirs he says simply that ‘progress was at times slow, as the enemy reacted with fierce local counter-attacks’. It was an understatement belying the continuing pressure on Slim. He could console himself that he was on the point of overtaking the Japanese in numbers and firepower; he was establishing a secure line of communications back to the railhead at Dimapur; and the garrison at Kohima was proving itself a match for the attackers. At Imphal the 4th Corps had stopped the advance of the Japanese 15 and 33 Divisions. But Sato was close to taking control of all of Kohima Ridge, and once in place his troops could dig in and do what the Japanese did best: defend to the last man and delay Slim’s counter-strike into Burma.

  The Americans were pressing Mountbatten for the return of the loaned aircraft on which Slim’s massive supply operation was based; and a prolonged battle of attrition in the Naga Hills could convince the doubters in London, among them the prime minister, that the 14th Army could never defeat the Japanese in the jungle. The pressure to speed up the advance passed from London and Washington to Mountbatten, from the supreme commander to Slim and then to Stopford and Grover. On 16 April, Stopford attended a church parade in the garden of his residence and noted that there had been no startling developments at Kohima. But his expectation of imminent good news was growing. ‘I expect to hear any time now that 2 Div have kicked out the Jap.’ Just twenty-four hours later, Stopford erupted in frustration. Grover’s plan for Kohima was ‘much too slow and cumbersome’, he was ‘boot bound’ and slow in his methods, a point Stopford intended to make forcefully when he met him.

  The mist had turned to rain and across the perimeter the Japanese were attacking. They had recovered from the shock of Calistan’s raid at the tennis court and put in an assault of their own. The Brens kept them out. Up at the Indian hospital buildings behind the headquarters, a raid against the Assam Rifles’ trenches was beaten back with twenty-four Japanese killed. The hospital position was the ‘back door’ to the perimeter; situated on a steep bluff on the northern edge of Garrison Hill it was the most daunting prospect for the Japanese infantry on the road. But it did not deter them from attacking.

  Up here Charles Pawsey was sharing a bunker with the Assam Rifles’ CO, Buster Keene, an old friend, responsible for the policing of the Naga Hills. As the days ground on, the old soldier Pawsey was consoled by his own appreciation of the battle. He was increasingly convinced that the Japanese had thrown away the chance of a great victory. ‘Had the Japs attacked with everything they had on the 5th or 6th of April they could have taken this place,’ he wrote. They could have ‘created panic in India’, but had now lost the initiative. They might still take Kohima Ridge, though, and kill Pawsey and everybody else. He did not dwell on the prospect of imminent mortality. At the Somme, and in the high mountains of the Tyrol fighting the Austrians, he had been a whisker from death more than once. For Charles Pawsey the answer to fear was to remain occupied, to be useful to the fighting men. So whenever the shelling eased or stopped he made his rounds of the trenches and visits to the wounded. An account by an Indian officer of the Assam Rifles described how this ‘unarmed civilian in the midst of all the carnage, a more unruffled man one could not imagine … a source of inspiration …’

  On the southern perimeter the strain of relentless attack and declining numbers was showing. Ever since the fall of Detail Hill, where John Harman had died in Donald Easten’s arms, the next position, Supply Hill, had been the Japanese focus. The West Kents of C and D companies fell back to this larger hill with numerous small buildings. They joined the 4/7 Rajput and composite Indian troops – mule drivers, cooks, clerks, signalmen – and fought off repeated attacks before the Japanese gained a foothold. A platoon of Assam Rifles was dispatched to help and pushed the enemy back. Back and forth it went.

  Donald Easten returned to the battle. With his arm in a sling he gave an outward appearance of courage. ‘You mustn’t let the soldiers think you are frightened. Obviously you were terrified but you didn’t let anybody know that. You went out and did it.’ One of the early casualties was Easten’s Company Sergeant Major, Bill Haines, who was blinded by an explosion. He refused to leave the area and leaned on the arm of a private who directed him as he shouted encouragement to the men. The pressure continued to intensify. Blasted backwards by shelling, the 3 Assam Rifles and 4/7 Rajput pulled out of their positions. Laverty sent John Faulkner and his platoon from A company to try to plug the gap. Faulkner spotted a gun hidden behind a tarpaulin on the Japanese position opposite. He was about to call in a mortar attack when the Japanese opened fire. ‘We kept our heads down as round after round came over onto the positions … It was horrible to hear the solid steel shell knocking and ricocheting through the trees.’ Leaves, branches, shards of wood and thick shot showered down. Private Norman of C company missed death by inches. A piece of shrapnel embedded itself in his pack. ‘Luck was with us,’ he wrote in his diary.

  Faulkner saw the Japanese ground attack coming, the ‘dimly flitted shapes outlined in the darkness’, creeping towards his positions. Here the fire control of the West Kents was essential. Wait and wait, until it seems as if they are nearly on top of you. At fifteen yards the West Kents opened fire. A sergeant in one bunker shot three Japanese in quick succession as they tried to enter. The attack was beaten back. The following morning Faulkner sent a man to check whether there was any sign of the Japanese digging in around the area. It was just as well he did. ‘Suddenly I heard a voice, a subdued scuffle, and he reappeared, this time with his eyes popping out of his head. “There’s Japs in a bunker 30 yards over there,” he said – “and one of ’em said ‘Come ’ere’ to me.”’ Faulkner went to check. Poking head and shoulders out of his own bunker, he saw the Japanese. There were four of them sitting by the path, ‘talking away as if their lives depended on it’. One of the Japanese turned around and saw Faulkner. They looked at each other ‘for a long minute’
and then the man spoke: ‘Come here.’ Faulkner was astonished. ‘I thought this was a bit thick.’ He returned to the cover of the bunker and sent a party out to shoot the Japanese. The Bren-gunner killed all four.

  That afternoon the Japanese came again, this time under cover of mist and armed with sticks of dynamite. They blasted the trenches to Faulkner’s left. Here the composite Indian troops were driven back. The Japanese were now moving between the West Kents’ positions like wraiths. The Brens scythed through the smoke at unseen targets and the attack eventually fizzled out. But that night, at around 2200 hours, they were back. The trenches were silent. Only a darting shape alerted a West Kent private to the arrival of the enemy. There was the sound of guns being cocked. A tin can was kicked somewhere to the front. Then came a burst of fire. ‘[Private] Steele had fired at a shape that came too close.’ But the silence returned. A private crept up to Faulkner and told him the Japanese had entered a basha close by. Suddenly grenades were being thrown from the basha. The West Kents opened up with a Tommy gun and grenades. The Japanese inside were still fighting. Another grenade was thrown from the basha and landed at the edge of Faulkner’s trench. The West Kents now resorted to one of the simplest and most effective of all close-quarter weapons, the Molotov cocktail. After opening up with his Tommy gun Faulkner ran across to the basha and threw in the Molotov. It glowed but failed to ignite properly. Next they tried an incendiary bomb, but that failed too. Faulkner could not leave the Japanese with a foothold in his perimeter. He took a bottle of petrol and crept back to the basha. Kneeling outside he doused the walls. It was a recklessly brave thing to do. At any moment the occupants could have opened fire, or an infiltrating Japanese could have seen him. With petrol in his hand and all around him Faulkner would have been set on fire by a shot. His luck held. He ran back to his bunker and threw a grenade at the basha. It erupted in flames. ‘There was more scuffling and the inmates dashed out and back down the slope. Ferguson was waiting for them with his Bren. He pulled the trigger and the gun jammed – much to his disappointment.’ Another attack had been repulsed. The jamming of Brens was becoming frequent, a symptom as much of the handlers’ fatigue as of wear and tear on the weapon. Exhausted men will struggle to clean a weapon properly and to make sure that it is ready to fire.

  The following morning A company was pulled out of the line and sent to rest, if that were possible, near the Indian hospital at the summit of Garrison Hill. The 4th battalion had by now suffered two hundred casualties, approaching half the number that had entered Kohima; many of those with less serious wounds went back into the trenches to fight. At some point before C company was also replaced on 17 April, Private Ray Street recalled, a bottle of rum was passed round. ‘I began to feel really merry and started singing aloud, “Onward Christian Soldiers”. Soon the others joined in and it seemed the whole hill was singing … I don’t know what the Japs made of it but we gave little thought to that. Mind you the next barrage seemed heavier.’ The Assam Regiment and Assam Rifles who came in to take over the positions had earned the respect of the Royal West Kents, no mean feat given the latter’s ingrained sense of superiority to any other fighting formation. The 4th battalion history recorded that both Assam units ‘had proved their fighting qualities and could be relied on to hold any position given to them’.

  Loyalty to comrades, as well as the terrible situation at the ADS, was decisive in the decision of wounded men refusing to leave the line. Private Norman passed through the ADS on his way from Detail Hill to get water. ‘It was a most terrifying and heartbreaking experience. We kept falling over dead bodies which were black and decaying … as we passed through the hospital the smell was overpowering.’ He also recorded that because of the high number of casualties C company had ceased to exist and was now part of A company. Major Donald Easten was a witness to the scene at the ADS while he was having his wounded arm dressed. ‘Many of the wounded I feel sure died in the last few days because they had given up hope. Yet they were incredibly cheerful, outwardly, up to the end.’

  Throughout 17 April the Japanese mounted attacks. Trenches were lost and retaken, but the positions on Supply Hill were becoming untenable. Japanese shelling, machine guns and snipers were killing and maiming the Indian troops and wearing down the reserves of faith. A young Indian officer, Major Naveen Rawlley, commanded the composite troops on the hill and led three counterattacks under withering fire. He was an officer who found his mettle under the pressure of enemy attack; at the start of the siege he had presented himself to Richards and offered to do any job that was required. ‘Are you infantry?’ Richards had asked. Rawlley replied in the affirmative. ‘9/12th Frontier Force Regiment, Sir.’ In the days that followed he welded a frequently unwilling assortment of men into a fighting unit and held on to Supply Hill, fighting alongside the West Kents and then the Assam troops, until resistance was impossible. On the night of 17 April a heavy Japanese barrage set buildings alight across Supply Hill. The defenders fled, leaving behind Rawlley, who stayed hunkered down throughout the bombardment.* He managed to escape an advancing wave of Japanese and reach the next line of defence at Kuki Piquet. This small hill was the last before Garrison Hill with its headquarters bunkers and the ADS. If the Japanese took Kuki Piquet, the garrison was as good as lost. Every remaining man, around 2,500, including all the wounded and non-combatants, would be crammed into a space barely three hundred yards in diameter. Once the Japanese were in among the defenders on Garrison Hill, the advantage of artillery support would be lost. No observer would risk bringing down fire in such a confined space.

  Even the bravest man his limits, a place where courage is rendered useless by the demands of the body. After thirteen days with little or no sleep, the ever-present smell of death, the sight and sound of men dying, a chronic shortage of water, and the air filled with flying metal, the nervous system was beginning to win its struggle with the conscious mind. By the reckoning of one Assam Regiment officer, there were about forty-five battle-ready men on Kuki Piquet. They included what was left of Donald Easten’s D company, the Assam troops who had survived the battle of Supply Hill, a handful of 4/7 Rajput, and the remains of Naveen Rawlley’s composite force. All were physically and mentally exhausted after the flight from Supply Hill, ‘infected by this panic’, according to the West Kents’ war diary. Preparing to attack them were at least two Japanese companies, around 360 men, with more in reserve.

  Up at the Advanced Dressing Station during the day of 17 April, Lieutenant Colonel Young was making plans for evacuation. As soon as there was a breakthrough, he wanted his men ready to move. On the radio from Jotsoma, Warren told Laverty to expect a company of 1/1 Punjab, supported by tanks, which would begin the relief under cover of a massive barrage. Once the Punjab troops had deployed to cover the evacuation, the walking wounded would move off in groups of twenty; they would be followed by the stretcher cases in batches of six, at ten-minute intervals. The route would take them down to the road, past the Indian hospital, and in full view of the Japanese positions opposite. The stretcher cases would be picked up by ambulance, while the walking wounded would make their way to trucks. The tanks and artillery would keep the Japanese heads down while the evacuation took place.

  Faith was slipping away from many of the wounded in spite of Padre Randolph’s best efforts. He talked to men constantly and helped the orderlies clear the mess whenever a shell landed in a trench. The devout Christian Lieutenant Bruce Hayllar, shot in the opening hours of the siege, was rewounded by a shell fragment as he lay in his open trench. ‘Each time they fired some of our friends were killed. It was terribly frightening. But there is always somebody worse off than yourself and you all know you are in it together. In my case I used to pray like mad. I used to say to my friends: ask for God’s help. Just pray. It doesn’t matter which god you pray to. You think to yourself, “If we are meant to get out, we will get out, if not it’s just bad luck.”’ By the night of 17 April Hayllar no longer believed he would get out. ‘We kept
hearing we would be relieved, and it didn’t happen.’ Sensing that the end was near, he asked for his pistol. Other officers were doing the same. People were crying beside him, others screamed from the pain of their wounds, and he resolved to blow his own brains out rather than fall into Japanese hands. Did the idea of suicide bother his Christian conscience? ‘No. In a way I think it’s all right. If heaven is just around the corner and you die to get there … We were afraid of being captured by them and being killed in a gruesome way.’

  The shelling of Garrison Hill intensified and Hugh Richards believed it was the worst since the siege began. ‘How my own H.Q. and R.W.K. H.Q. escaped direct hits I don’t know, but they did.’ Lance Corporal Dennis Wykes was nearby with some remnants of A company. Like everybody else, he heard the firing coming from Supply Hill and felt the barrage shake Garrison Hill. He began to think he might not survive. ‘The officers just came round and said, “We’ll fight to the last round, the last bullet and we’ll stick until that happens.” Our forces were so decimated one of the young lads said, “Can I put a pip on my shoulder, I’m still alive.” And it was a bit of a joke, he wanted to be an officer!’