First published in Great Britain by PEN AND SWORD MILITARY an imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright © Raymond Street with Robert Street, 2015 ISBN: 978 1 47384 367 7 PDF ISBN: 978 1 47386 386 6 EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47386 385 9 PRC ISBN: 978 1 47386 384 2 The right of Raymond Street with Robert Street to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Printed and bound in England by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Typeset in Times by CHIC GRAPHICS Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe. For a complete list of Pen and Sword titles please contact Pen and Sword Books Limited 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Contents Preface Chapter 1. Early Days Chapter 2. India: Bombay, Ranket and Lucknow Chapter 3. The Arakan Campaign Maps of the Siege of Kohima appear between Chapters 3 and 4: 1. Panoramic View 2. Defence Perimeter at the Start of the Siege 3. Defence Perimeter at the End of the Siege 4. The Bungalow and Tennis Court Area 5. DIS Hill 6. Section Through Bungalow Sector Chapter 4. The Siege of Kohima I, 5–9 April 1944 Chapter 5. The Siege of Kohima II, 10–14 April 1944 Chapter 6. The Siege of Kohima III, 15–20 April Chapter 7. Recuperation and Advance Chapter 8. Leave in Simla Chapter 9. The Chocolate Staircase Chapter 10. Hospital, Home, Back to Burma, Demob Postscript Appendix A. Kohima Roll of Honour Appendix B. After the Siege Preface ‘What did Granddad do in the War?’ Many children ask that nowadays. Many parents do not know. Some never found out, because the suffering and the horrors they experienced prevented men talking about their war years. In some cases the details have been taken to their graves. It was the norm to sweep such things under the carpet. I remember my father, Raymond Street, was told on numerous occasions not to ‘go on about the war’. It almost became a forbidden subject. Fortunately, my children’s grandfather did ‘go on’, and his story was published in 1998 in a book called A Brummie in Burma. It told of his experiences as a typical inner city lad thrust into the amazing sights of exotic foreign lands and into the horrors of war. It chronicled the activities and achievements of his regiment, the 4th Battalion of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kents, in India and Burma, including its remarkable defence during the siege of Kohima, where a possible Japanese advance to India was halted. Subsequent to the publication of that book, many former Royal West Kents contacted me with previously unknown information about the battle, some of which had not even been disclosed to their family or friends. Since then I have researched the siege and taken accounts from those who were there. Unfortunately, memories have sometimes faded, but often they are still vivid. The present book, whilst dealing with a much wider time period, describes in detail the experiences of the 4th Battalion of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment during the siege and defence of Kohima. It tells of personal experiences and the individual thoughts of the men as some 446 ‘West Kents’, together with the supporting Assam Regiment and Assam Rifles, held nearly 15,000 Japanese soldiers at bay for sixteen days until relief arrived. Although this was one of the most important land battles of the Second World War, a major turning point in favour of the Allies, it went somewhat unnoticed in the bigger picture. Indeed, those involved in Kohima and the subsequent advance into Burma have become known as ‘the Forgotten Army’. Well, many of those involved have told me that they refuse to be forgotten and have freely given me details of their experiences so that the truth may be known once and for all. Their story is told by me in the form of a first-person account by my father, Raymond Street, who even today has vivid memories of that time, and it gives a detailed account of day-to-day events. The story may be disjointed in parts, where recollections of exact events are sometimes unclear, but it has been left this way deliberately, since to resort to invention would detract from these men’s achievements. AT KOHIMA IN APRIL 1944, THE JAPANESE INVASION OF INDIA WAS HALTED These words are inscribed on the 161st Brigade memorial at Kohima. This was a small garrison town in Nagaland near the Indo-Burmese border. It was a supply depot and convalescent camp on the main road between Imphal and Dimapur, where the British had set up command posts and supply bases. If the Japanese had taken these two towns they would have opened a gateway to invade India; and once they had possession of the associated airstrips and railheads they might have been impossible to stop. Attacks on Imphal and Dimapur were therefore expected, but to get to Dimapur through Kohima, the enemy would have to bring their army over inhospitable, mountainous jungle terrain. The British military authorities did not think this possible. However, despite the jungle conditions and disease, the Japanese did bring over 15,000 men together with their equipment, living off the land and capturing provisions as they went. They headed for Dimapur, but first they had to take Kohima, garrisoned at that time by the Indian Assam Regiment and the 3rd Assam Rifles. At the end of March 1944, the 4th Battalion of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent regiment was sent to help. Just 446 officers and men arrived on 5 April 1944, to fight at Kohima while it was under siege, until relief came on 20 April 1944. Not many of these left the battlefield unaided. My father, Raymond Street, and some of the other survivors were kind enough to share their experiences with me. This is their story and is dedicated to those who did not return. Robert Street May 2013 Chapter 1 Early Days I couldn’t have been more than four or five. I was in a large room with a billiard table. We were at the house sale of some former high ranking military officer who had died. It was also a gunroom. My parents were there to see what they could buy for the second-hand furniture shop they ran. My father was going through my pockets taking away some live bullets that I’d got hold of and giving my mother a dressing down for not keeping an eye on me. I’d always had a fascination for guns and couldn’t wait until I could buy my first air rifle. We lived above a shop in Montpelier Villas, Cheltenham, later moving to the house at the rear. Early one morning, my mother woke me up. She said that we had to go and catch the train to Birmingham and that my father would follow later with the furniture. We were always moving around. My mother would set up in business, only to move on again when it failed or trade was so poor she couldn’t go on. In Cheltenham trade was bad. It was time for a new start. We had relatives in Birmingham, so that was where we went. In 1931 the country was still in the depths of the Depression. Being out of work was a way of life. My mother Ivy was the breadwinner, buying and selling second-hand furniture, paintings or whatever she could in her shop. She was a slim raven-haired woman with blue eyes, somewhat Jewish in appearance, which matched her business acumen. She married my father Arthur in 1917, shortly after he was invalided out of the First World War, wounded by a Turkish sniper’s bullet. It ripped out most of his throat, damaging his vocal cords and leaving him with a hoarse, gravelly voice. He was a regular soldier, but had no trade or profession when he left the Army. He was only able to do casual work. Jobs were at a premium, so he was out of work most of the time. He had to sell his war medals and treasured collection of butterflies, caught during his days in India, to provide for us. His Army pension was only £1 per week. Mom earned what she could, but we never had enough. In Birmingham Mom rented a shop in Hall Green, a somewhat posh area in the suburbs. My brother Eddie and I were sent to the local Hall Green School. Although my brother was able to settle down quickly, I found it difficult. Not only did I find the work hard, but I was left-handed and they made me use my right. The other children were quite snobbish and they taunted me because of my Gloucestershire accent, making me unhappy, so I played truant and was in trouble most of the time. My mother’s new shop wasn’t doing well so we moved to another part of town, Gladstone Road, Sparkbrook. I found myself at a new school, Golden Hillock Road. This was a working class, rough and ready sort of place, with teachers who could sort us out. I settled down well with these poorer children and started to enjoy school again. Despite the lack of wealth and their poor conditions, there was a general honesty about these inner city people. They would pull together in times of hardship. Doors were never locked, and we often walked freely to and from each other’s houses without fear or worry. Of course, the immediate neighbours generally had several local relatives, so there was always a watchful eye to see that all was well. Our standard of living wasn’t too bad, but we did have some hard times and often had to have Sunday dinner at one of our relatives’ houses when money became short. In the summer holidays I would go with Eddie to visit my Uncle George and our cousins. Uncle George was a builder. We would help make the concrete blocks for the new houses he was building. Each day we would travel a couple of miles to the building site in Wake Green Road, make blocks, riddle sand or undertake some other small task, all for a few sandwiches and three pence a day! It was worth it, we had the time of our lives. The next few years were much the same: Mother opening and closing shops and us all moving from house to house in Birmingham. We eventually settled in Anderton Road. I was fourteen and had finished school. I worked in a local bakery, bringing home hard-earned cash, much needed for the family kitty. We stayed at Anderton Road for four years before moving around the corner into Palmerston Road. This was my mother’s finest business venture. Somehow she managed to retain our old house in Anderton Road and took lodgers into both, my father collecting the rent and doing the odd jobs and repairs. She eventually acquired seven more houses for the same purpose. These were happy times for me. However, things weren’t all good; the Depression was still on, leaving many people poverty stricken. Most working class people weren’t that well paid and lived on the breadline. This meant that if you were out of work for any amount of time it could have serious implications for family life. Poverty goes hand in hand with poor health, and diseases such as tuberculosis and rickets were rife. I caught scarlet fever and spent weeks isolated in an attic room, cut off from everybody except my mother and father. Even my brother wasn’t allowed to see me. My father used to sit with me in the evening armed with a bottle of beer, light a cigarette and tell me about his days in the Army, until I fell asleep. I used to say, ‘Tell me about India, Dad’ or ‘Tell me about the war, Dad’. Little did I think that in ten years’ time I would go to those parts of India where he’d been. He’d been a regular soldier since 1911, not one of those men suddenly swept away by the emotion of patriotism in 1914. He was part of the coronation parade for King George V before being sent to India to serve. In 1915 he was called into action to fight in the Dardanelles. He told me of his battalion, the 4th Worcesters and their landing on W Beach at Gallipoli. They were following the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, who had run into a strong contingent of Turkish troops defending positions on the cliffs above. They landed to be met by a hail of bullets cutting down the young soldiers in vast numbers. As the waves broke on the shore the sea was red with the blood of the dead and wounded. As they tried to move up the beach to the path to mount the cliff, my father spoke to a young officer from the Lancashires who looked like he was clinging to the cliff face, only to find that he was actually dead. They eventually got to the top, advanced several miles inland and dug in. My father’s job was to man a Vickers machine gun. As the darkness drew in, he set the gun to hit any attacking enemy in the lower part of the body or the legs. During the night noises were heard in no-man’s-land. My father was ordered to fire into the darkness, and this was met immediately by the screams and moans of the enemy. In the light of the day, he witnessed large groups of dead and wounded Turks, many with limbs hanging off where the bullets from his machine gun had cut them down. He and his comrades did what they could for the wounded, putting their packs under their legs to support them, giving them water and tending their wounds as best they could. This was far better treatment than some of our boys got from the Turks, who apparently often tortured them to death and left them nailed to wooden crosses. A couple of weeks later, my father was firing his Vickers at the Turkish front line, causing havoc in their enemy trenches. A sniper’s bullet hit his machine gun’s water cooling casing around the barrel, but he calmly plugged the bullet hole and opened fire again. Another bullet thudded into the path alongside him, but again he focused on his target, relentlessly sending a shower of machine gun bullets into the enemy position. Suddenly, a blow like a sledgehammer hit him across the throat, knocking him backwards. A sniper’s bullet had ripped his throat open, severing his windpipe and causing him to start choking on his own blood. He couldn’t cry out because his vocal cords had been damaged. His comrades roughly bandaged his wound and dragged him away from his machine gun to a safer place. Left alone, he had the choice of staying there and bleeding to death or attempting to make his way to the first aid dressing station. Unaided, picking out