Springboard to Victory

Burma Campaign and Battle for Kohima. First Edition. xiv, 242 p., [10] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 22 c Bibliography: p. 258-259. #0921

The Battle of Kohima (together with the intertwined Battle of Imphal) proved the turning point of the Japanese U-Go offensive into India in 1944 during the Second World War. The battle took place in three stages from 4 April to 22 June 1944 around the town of Kohima, now the capital of Nagaland in northeast India. From 3 to 16 April, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the besieged British and Indian troops of IV Corps at Imphal were supplied. By mid-April, the small British and Indian force at Kohima was relieved.

From 18 April to 13 May British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The Japanese abandoned the ridge at this point but continued to block the Kohima–Imphal road. From 16 May to 22 June the British and Indian troops pursued the retreating Japanese and reopened the road. The battle ended on 22 June when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, ending the Siege of Imphal.

The battle has been referred to by authors such as Martin Dougherty and Jonathan Ritter as the “Stalingrad of the East”.[5][6] Military historian Robert Lyman said that the battle of Kohima and Imphal “changed the course of the Second World War in Asia… For the first time the Japanese were defeated in a battle and they never recovered from it”.[7]

In 2013 a poll conducted by the British National Army Museum voted the Battles of Imphal and Kohima as “Britain’s Greatest Battle”.[8]