Road of Bones Read online

  p. 264 ‘excellent Survey’ Richards Papers, narrative of Kohima.

  p. 265 ‘Thank you Douglas’ Cited in Campbell, The Siege, p. 84.

  p. 265 ‘found that a lot’ IWM, file no. 81/16/1, diary of Private Harold Norman.

  p. 265 ‘There were quite a lot’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 265 ‘I think I know’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 265 ‘an almighty’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 266 ‘he and the others’ IWM, file no. 81/16/1, diary of Private Harold Norman.

  p. 266 ‘It was awful in’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 267 ‘Colonel Young said’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 267 ‘An endeavour was made’ NA, WO 177/2155, War Diary of the 75th Indian Field Ambulance, April 1944.

  p. 267 ‘with the wounded’ Richards Papers, ‘How I Came to Be at Kohima’ (private memoir).

  p. 268 ‘poor Nobby Hall’ IWM, file no. 4587 81/16/1, diary of Private Harold Norman.

  p. 268 ‘I was rather thinking’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 269 ‘instead of running back’ IWM, file no. 4587 81/16/1, diary of Private Harold Norman.

  p. 269 ‘The poor chap’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 269 ‘I tried to pull’ Diary of Private Harold Norman.

  p. 270 ‘It was really nerve-wracking’ Ibid.

  p. 270 ‘went wild but’ Ibid.

  p. 270 ‘We were surrounded’ Ibid.

  p. 271 ‘It blew the poor’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 17537, interview with Donald Easten.

  Seventeen: Over the Mountain

  p. 272 ‘I think that all’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of General Montagu North Stopford, 6 April 1944.

  p. 272 ‘I am not satisfied’ Diary of General Montagu North Stopford, 8 April 1944.

  p. 273 ‘garrison must stay’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of Major General John Grover.

  p. 273 ‘devilish row, screaming’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of Captain Arthur Swinson, 8 April 1944.

  p. 273 ‘that went howling’ Ibid.

  p. 273 ‘Apart from these’ Ibid.

  p. 273 ‘At the “Non Sum Dignus”’ Ibid.

  p. 274 ‘They went when and how’ IWM, file no. 10520 P104, The Operations of the 5 Infantry Brigade, 2 Division in Assam, 30 March–12 May 1944, Brigadier V. S. F. Hawkins.

  p. 274 ‘or there’d be hell’ Swinson’s account on the Worcestershire Regiment website . This contains slightly different accounts – sometimes edited, sometimes more copious – than Swinson’s written diary at the Imperial War Museum.

  p. 274 ‘the wild days’ Diary of Captain Arthur Swinson.

  p. 274 ‘Perhaps he would have’ Ibid.

  p. 275 ‘I was a bit appalled’ Hawkins, The Operations of the 5 Infantry Brigade.

  p. 275 ‘He was rather stick’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 276 ‘everybody dug holes’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 276 ‘we had done so’ Hawkins, The Operations of the 5 Infantry Brigade.

  p. 276 ‘We went in single file’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 276 ‘never faltering or stumbling’ RQMS Frederick J. Weedman, 7th battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, personal memoir.

  p. 277 ‘night was split asunder’ Ibid.

  p. 277 ‘like an angry bee’ Ibid.

  p. 277 ‘He smouldered for’ Ibid.

  p. 277 ‘Little Jap upon’ Ibid.

  p. 278 ‘The relief of Kohima’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of General Montagu North Stopford, April 13 1944.

  p. 278 ‘beginning to see light’ Field Marshall Lord Slim, Defeat into Victory, p. 314.

  p. 278 ‘For their gains’ Ibid.

  p. 278 ‘As I watched the’ Ibid.

  p. 279 ‘at the cost of skimping’ Ibid.

  p. 279 ‘The hard fact is’ Lieutenant General Sir Henry Pownall, Chief of Staff, Diaries, Volume Two – 1940–44 (edited by Brian Bond, Leo Cooper, 1974.), p. 164.

  p. 280 ‘We should not hesitate’ NA, CAB/65/42/5, Meeting of War Cabinet, 11 April 1944.

  p. 280 ‘without air transport’ Library of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Military Correspondence: 1944–45 index, box 36. Letter of Lord Mountbatten to President Roosevelt, 28 March 1944.

  p. 280 ‘He was given’ L/Sergeant Jim Campion, Jungle Hell of Kohima, personal memoir.

  p. 280 ‘full of bounding’ Lord Louis Mountbatten, Personal Diary of Admiral the Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia, 1943–1946, ed. by Philip Ziegler (Collins, 1988), p. 88.

  p. 281 ‘the same as your’ Ibid.

  p. 281 ‘When I think of’ Ibid.

  p. 281 ‘The one who did’ Ibid.

  p. 281 ‘I began to wonder’ Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries – 1939–1945 (Edited by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2001), pp. 532–534.

  p. 282 ‘it would be better’ Ibid.

  p. 282 ‘like a man chained’ Ibid.

  p. 282 ‘To the north’ NA, CAB 65/42/1, Meeting of War Cabinet, 3 April 1944.

  p. 282 ‘to discuss India’ Alanbrooke, War Diaries, 1939–1945, pp. 228.

  p. 282 ‘Rowland from Indian’ Ibid.

  p. 282 ‘I have during the’ Ibid.

  p. 283 ‘We cannot stop every’ Cited in Arthur James Barker, The March on Delhi (Faber and Faber, 1963), p. 118.

  p. 283 ‘It is obvious that’ Ibid, p. 132.

  p. 283 ‘Kohima was very’ IWM, file no. 2234 92/39/1, papers of Major Walter Greenwood.

  p. 283 ‘at 5.30 p.m. each day’ RMAA, Pawsey papers, Captain WPG MacLachlan, ‘Report on the Kohima Box.’

  p. 284 ‘Not at the present’ Hansard, Deb 4 April 1944, vol 398, cc1815-6W.

  p. 285 ‘Harrassing fire means’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 20125, interview with Sergeant William Wilson.

  p. 285 ‘The Jap party then’ stay’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of Major General John Grover.

  p. 285 ‘The Worcesters accepted’ IWM, Swinson papers, General Sir John Grover, narrative of Kohima battle.

  Eighteen: Dreams Dying

  p. 286 ‘It was so very’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 286 ‘At the same time’ Lieutenant Hiroshi Yamagami’s Memoir, in Burma Front: Reminiscences of the 58th Japanese Infantry Regiment (58th Infantry Regimental Association, 1964).

  p. 287 ‘The battle of Kohima’ Ibid.

  p. 287 ‘It came to us’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 287 ‘One group would’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 287 ‘I had heard the’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 287 ‘thunder and it felt’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 287 ‘The men were so’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 288 ‘When I arrived’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 288 ‘Children and grandchildren’ Takahide Kuwaki, The Greater East Asia War Has Not Yet Ended: An Army Doctor’s Memoir of a Trench in Burma (Tentensha, 1997), p. 56.

  p. 288 ‘They first fired’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 289 ‘I hurried to draw’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, Lieutenant K. Togawa, ‘Grapple with Enemy’.

  p. 289 ‘One so brave’ Ibid.

  p. 289 ‘ceased to move’ Ibid.

  p. 289 ‘The Army Comdr’ NA, WO 303/6320, Essays and Interrogations of Lieutenant Colonel Iwaichi Fujiwara.

  p. 289 ‘In a long’ NIDS, Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, handwritten account.

  p. 290 ‘I then gave the’ NDL, Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, interview with official historian.

  p. 290 ‘Dimapur was not’ Cited in Arthur James Barker, The March on Delhi (Faber and Faber, 1963), p. 247.

  p. 290 ‘this is not good’ Ibid.

  p. 291 ‘heavy casualties’ NA, WO 203/6324, Appendix to Bulletin no. 245, Account of Lieutenant General Shigesaburo Miyazaki, C
ommander of 31st Division Infantry Group.

  p. 291 ‘I believe that’ ‘Memoir of Division Leader Sato.’ Published by ‘Retsu’ Division War Veterans Association.

  p. 291 Fewer than a fifth Arthur Swinson, Four Samurai (Hutchinson, 1968), p. 137.

  p. 292 without exception’ Field Marshal Lord Slim, Defeat into Victory (Cassell, 1956), p. 311.

  p. 292 ‘They were astonished’ Ibid.

  p. 292 The priority is’ Amrarume Museum, essay by General Kotuku Sato.

  p. 293 ‘Though the Nagas’ Ursula Graham Bower, Naga Path (John Murray, 1952), p. 196.

  p. 293 They went off’ Ibid., p. 199.

  p. 293 ‘We honey-combed’ Ibid., p. 193.

  p. 293 ‘The Kohima men’ RMAA, Pawsey Papers, Krusischi Paschar narrative.

  p. 293 ‘DC kept saying’ Salhoutie Mechieo, interview with Kohima Educational Trust, 2008.

  p. 294 ‘The Zubza cannons’ RMAA, Pawsey Papers, Krusischi Paschar narrative.

  p. 294 ‘We fought for that’ Anonymous villager, interview with Kohima Educational Trust, 2008.

  p. 294 ‘This was repeatedly’ NA, WO 203/6388, ‘Operations of the 23rd British Infantry Brigade, Naga Hills, April – July 1944.’

  p. 294 ‘I remember taking’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 295 ‘A fine group of men’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of Captain Arthur Swinson.

  p. 295 ‘scalp each other’ Ibid.

  p. 295 ‘They offer to take’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of Major General John Grover.

  p. 295 ‘Capture alive Japanese’ NA, WO 203/6388, Amdt. No. 1 to 23 Inf. Bde. Op. Instr. No. 10, dated 4 May 1944.

  p. 296 ‘They started very early’ RMAA, Pawsey Papers, Account of Column 76 of 23 Brigade against the Japanese by Khumbo Angami, Teacher, Government High School, Kohima.

  Nineteen: The Black Thirteenth

  p. 297 ‘If a bloke got’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 297 ‘I marvelled at’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 297 ‘They tried so hard’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 298 ‘Oh my God’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 298 Gas gangrene thrived See Gas Gangrene, Merck Manuals Online Medical Library .

  p. 299 ‘Shocking wounds’ Cited in C. E. Lucas Phillips, Springboard to Victory (Heinemann, 1966), p. 137.

  p. 299 ‘We felt very close’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 299 ‘I remember that man’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 299 ‘was always grinning’ Letter from Bruce Hayllar to his parents, April 1944.

  p. 299 ‘because we were’ Ibid.

  p. 300 ‘All he would say’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 300 ‘even harder to bear’ Arthur Campbell, The Siege (Allen and Unwin, 1956), p. 102.

  p. 300 He had a strip of Robert Street, The Siege of Kohima: The Battle for Burma (Barny Books, 2003), p. 78.

  p. 300 ‘I had to leave the trench’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 300 ‘She told him that’ Street, The Siege of Kohima, p. 80.

  p. 301 ‘very heavily mortared’ NA, WO 177/2155, War Diary of 75th Indian Field Ambulance, April 1944.

  p. 301 ‘a terrible day’ Cited in Lucas Phillips, Springboard to Victory, p. 188.

  p. 302 ‘Follow the knife’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 25696, interview with Frank Infanti.

  p. 302 ‘During the night’ NA, WO 177/2155, War Diary of 75th Indian Field Ambulance, April 1944.

  p. 302 ‘and men had to crawl’ NA, WO 172/4884, War Diary, 4th battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment, 8/9 April 1944.

  p. 303 ‘We had rifles’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 21102, interview with Leslie Crouch.

  p. 303 ‘in a trilby hat’ IWM, Oral History Project, interview with Donald Easten.

  p. 303 ‘He was an old man’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 303 ‘quite unpleasant’ Richards Papers, Hugh Richards narrative of Kohima.

  p. 304 ‘He was a fine soldier’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 305 ‘By your acts’ Richards Papers, Special Order of the Day, 13 April 1944.

  p. 306 ‘until we could find’ Lieutenant John Faulkner, handwritten memoir.

  p. 307 ‘A hell of a din’ Lieutenant John Faulkner, handwritten memoir.

  p. 307 ‘Where the hell’ Ibid.

  p. 307 ‘They came howling’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 307 ‘I said to this lad’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 308 ‘“Don’t let me die”’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 308 ‘I will always remember’ Walter Williams, personal memoir, and interviewed for this book.

  p. 308 ‘You don’t forget’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 308 ‘More often than not’ Ibid.

  p. 308 ‘fire down on call’ Richards Papers, ‘How I Came to Be at Kohima’ (private memoir).

  p. 309 ‘At 6 p.m. the Jap’ Lieutenant John Faulkner, handwritten memoir.

  p. 309 ‘smoking furiously’ Ibid.

  p. 309 ‘completely off his rocker’ Ibid.

  p. 309 ‘No man can be brave’ Ibid.

  p. 309 ‘He looked awful’ Ibid.

  p. 309 ‘George Mann’s dead’ Ibid.

  p. 309 ‘I ran so fast’ Ibid.

  p. 310 That made me worse’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 311 ‘I must have a cat’s’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 311 ‘splinter proof roof’ NA, WO 177/2155, War Diary of 75th Indian Field Ambulance, April 1944.

  p. 311 ‘nervous exhaustion’ Ibid.

  p. 311 ‘Somehow we hung on’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 311 ‘two days in this area’ H. D. Chaplin, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 1920–1950 (Michael Joseph, 1954).

  p. 312 ‘It was only snippets’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 20769, interview with Bert Harwood.

  p. 312 ‘Every day Danny Laverty’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 2927, interview with Leonard Brown.

  p. 312 “we were continually hearing’ NA, WO 172/5045, War Diary of the 1st Assam Regiment.

  p. 312 “I saw him being killed’ Interviewed for this book.

  Twenty: A Question of Time

  p. 313 ‘who thinks it may’ IWM, Swinson Papers, file no. NRA 28568, diary of General Montagu North Stopford, 15 April 1944.

  p. 313 ‘We were now split’ IWM, file no. 10520, The Operations of the 5 Infantry Brigade, 2 Division in Assam, 30 March–12 May 1944, Brigadier V. S. F. Hawkins.

  p. 314 ‘It is very seldom’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 314 ‘It was terrible’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 314 ‘Hey! Johnny, are you there?’ Fusilier Garry Noel, interviewed for this book.

  p. 314 ‘This was a great mistake’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 316 ‘nine or ten of which’ Michael Lowry, Fighting Through to Kohima (Pen and Sword, 2003), p. 201.

  p. 316 ‘simply an essay’ NIDS, General Kotuku Sato, handwritten memoir.

  p. 316 ‘they were thrown back’ Richards Papers, 33 Indian Corps Account of Operations, vol. 1, 1 April–22 June 1944.

  p. 317 ‘Enemy planes and firepower’ NAM, 9412-118-83-110. The name of the General making this statement is not given in the file but his declaration that, ‘Our group’s responsibility will be to sweep down into Kohima and cut off the enemy’s line of retreat’ indicates that it almost certainly comes from the commander of the Infantry Group, Major General Shigesaburo Miyazaki. This was precisely his allotted task.

  p. 317 ‘They are men without’ Ibid.

  p. 318 ‘That night attack’ Cited in Michiko Masuzawa, A Quiet Man: About My Father Shigesaburo Miyazaki (Koyo Publishing, 1987).

  p. 319 ‘I feel sorry for’ Ibid.

  p. 319 ‘It had been planned’ NAM, Colvin Papers, file no. 9412-118-83-110,’Interrogation of General Kotuku Sato’, citing IWM file no. 5009/7.

  p. 319 �
��not a grain of rice’ Manabu Wada, Drifting Down the Chindwin: A Story of Survival (Burma Campaign Fellowship Group, [n.d.]).

  p. 319 ‘I thanked for my’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 320 ‘When the enemy appeared’ Lieutenant Shosaku Kameyama, personal memoir.

  p. 320 ‘When there is no more rice’ Lieutenant Shosaku Kameyama, in ‘The Kohima War Record’, trans. by Keiko Itoh, cited in Newsletter of the Burma Campaign Society, Issue no.6, March 2005.

  p. 320 ‘fire from a long’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 321 ‘To see them roaring’ H. L. Thompson, The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945: New Zealanders with the Royal Airforce: Air Superiority and the Arakan Battle (Historical Publications Branch, 1959), ch. 15 ‘Operation Thursday and the Victory at Imphal’.

  p. 321 ‘We bombed in sections’ Jack Morton, ‘Sojourn in the Royal Airforce’ .

  p. 321 ‘When we landed’ Ibid.

  p. 322 ‘We carried packed lunches’ IWM, file no. 02/49, Derek Thirlwell, ‘The Early Days of 194 Squadron Royal Air Force’.

  p. 322 ‘Fatty’s’ parties after’ Ibid.

  p. 322 ‘would somebody please Ibid.

  p. 323 ‘Almost every night’ BBC People’s War, Eric Forsdyke.

  p. 323 ‘In the best of weather’ Second Lieutenant J. D. Broughel, 1st Transport Group, 13th Transport Squadron US Army, ‘Over the Hump’ .

  p. 323 ‘Knowing that the leading’ Into the Wildest Blue Yonder: Memoirs of 1st Lt. John Walker Russell, US Army Air Corps’, CBI Theatre of World War II.

  p. 324 ‘I took the normal spin’ IWM, file no. 02/49, Deryck Groockock, ‘Supply Dropping’, cited in Derek Thirlwell, ‘The Early Days of 194 Squadron Royal Air Force’.

  p. 325 ‘remember looking down’ Thirlwell, ‘The Early Days of 194 Squadron Royal Air Force’.

  p. 325 ‘often we would end up’ Flight Sergeant J. V. Bell, 31 Squadron, cited in Jon Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War (John Murray, 2004), p. 268.

  p. 325 ‘the Japanese Air Command’ NA, AIR 2/5665. Operations of Bengal Command, 15 November–17 December 1943 and Third Tactical Air Force, 18 December–1 June 1944.

  p. 326 ‘gave the enemy’ NA, WO 203/6324, Interrogation of Lieutenant Colonel Iwaichi Fujiwara.