The Battle of the Tennis Court was the turning point in the Battle of Kohima in North East India from April 4 – June 22, 1944. The Battle of Kohima (the " Stalingrad of the East" was the turning point of the Japanese U Go offensive into India in 1944 in World War II India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Events 1581 - Francis Drake completes a circumnavigation of the world and is knighted by Elizabeth I. Events 217 BC - Battle of Raphia: Ptolemy IV of Egypt defeats Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid kingdom. Year 1944 ( MCMXLIV) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
By April 5 the British had been forced back onto the Kohima ridge. Events 456 - St Patrick returns to Ireland as a missionary bishop The Kohima ridge consisted of features such as Garrison Hill, Jail Hill, Field Supply Depot (FSD) Hill, and Detail Issue (DIS) Hill; these areas, along with the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Charles Pawsey's Bungalow, were used as the main lines of defence which was held by 4th Royal West Kents and supporting troops from the Assam Rifles and Assam Regiment. Sir Charles Ridley Pawsey, CSI, CIE, MC (1894&ndash1972 was a British colonial administrator The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment was a regiment of the British Army. See also Rashtriya Rifles Special Forces of India Assam Regiment The Regimental Center of the Assam Regiment is situated at Happy Valley, Shillong. As they were cut off they were supplied by air by the Royal Air Force.
The Japanese launched a series of attacks into the north-east region of the defences on April 8, and by April 9 the British and Indians there had been forced back out of the DC's Bungalow to the other side of the tennis court. Events 217 - Roman Emperor Caracalla is Assassinated (and succeeded by his Praetorian Events 193 - Septimius Severus is proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum (in the Balkans) A tennis court is where the game of Tennis is played It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center The other positions came under heavy attack and the perimeter shrunk.
On April 13, the troops defending near the DC's bungalow and the tennis court came under increasingly heavy artillery and mortar fire, and had to repel frequent infantry assaults. Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople This area was the scene of some of the hardest, closest and grimmest fighting, with grenades being hurled across the tennis court at point-blank range. But on April 14 the Japanese did not launch an attack and on the 15th British troops on Kohima ridge heard that the British 2nd Division was attacking along the Dimapur-Kohima road and had broken through Japanese road blocks. Events 43 BC - Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar 's assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Dimapur (दीमापुर is the main commercial hub and one of the three municipalities in the state of Kohima ( Hindi: कोहिमा is the hilly capital of India 's north eastern border state of Nagaland which shares its borders with Burma
On the April 17, the Japanese tried one last time to take the ridge. Events 69 - After the First Battle of Bedriacum, Vitellius becomes Roman Emperor. They successfully captured the FSD to the Garrison Hill positions. But on the morning of April 18 British artillery opened up from the west against the Japanese positions, which stopped the Japanese attacks. Events 1025 - Bolesław Chrobry is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland. Elements of the British 2nd Division, 161st Brigade and tanks from XXXIII Corps pushed into the area north-west of Garrison Hill and forced the Japanese from their positions. The road between Dimapur and Kohima had been opened, and the siege was lifted.
The Japanese who had been fighting to capture Kohima did not retreat at once, many of them stayed in the positions which they had captured and fought tenaciously for several more weeks. By the morning of May 13, most of the positions in the Kohima region had been re-taken by the British and Indian forces; a few, among them the DC's bungalow, were still holding out against the Dorsets and their supporting tanks. Events 1497 - Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola.
Around May 15 the Japanese 31st Division began to withdraw and fresh British troops from XXXIII Corps began to reinforce and relieve members of the 2nd Division and 33rd and 161st Indian Brigades. Events 1252 - Pope Innocent IV issues the Papal bull Ad exstirpanda, which authorizes but also limits the The battle of the Tennis Court was over and troops of the British Fourteenth Army began an advance, with the relief of Imphal, which would continue until Burma had been recaptured. The British Fourteenth Army was a multinational force comprising units from Commonwealth countries during World War II. The Battle of Imphal took place in the region around the city of Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in North-East India from March until July Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar ( pjìdàunzṵ mjàmmà nàinŋàndɔ̀ is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia.
The fighting within the 6th Brigade's area was documented by Major Boshell, who commanded 'B' Company, 1st Royal Berkshires, in the 6th Infantry Brigade:
| “ | To begin with I took over an area overlooking the Tennis Court. . . The lie of the land made impossible to move by day because of Japanese snipers. We were in Kohima for three weeks. We were attacked every single night. . . They came in waves, it was like a pigeon shoot. Most nights they overran part of the battalion position, so we had to mount counter-attacks. . . Water was short and restricted to about one pint per man per day. So we stopped shaving. Air supply was the key, but the steep terrain and narrow ridges meant that some of the drops went to the Japs. My company went into Kohima over 100 strong and came out at about 60. [1] | ” |
This battle was ultimately to prove to be the turning point of the Battle of Kohima which was the turning point of the Burma Campaign. The Burma Campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was fought primarily between British Commonwealth, Chinese and United Earl Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander in the theatre, described Kohima as
| “ | probably one of the greatest battles in history. Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, South East Asia Command (SEAC was the body set up to be in overall charge of Allied operations in the South-East Asian Theatre during World War II. . . in effect the Battle of Burma. . . naked unparalleled heroism. . . the British/Indian Thermopylae. In the Battle of Thermopylae, which occurred in August 480 BC (and was detailed almost entirely by Herodotus) an alliance of Greek City-states fought [2] | ” |
References
- The Battle of Kohima, North East India 4 April – 22 June 1944(PDF) on website of the Veterans Agency
Footnotes
- ^ Veterans Agency References p. 6
- ^ Veterans Agency References p. 3
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