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00:00If you can imagine the heaviest rain you'd ever get in this country, going on for six
00:26to eight weeks without a break, this was monsoon period.
00:31Five months in every year.
00:34Sloshing through mud, living in mud, lying in mud, and sleeping in mud, and drinking
00:39in mud, and eating in mud.
00:41That was the monsoon in Burma, it's just a nightmare.
00:47War in Burma, made up in ferocity of what it lacked in scale.
00:53Here in 1944, in these conditions, the British were defending the frontiers of India against
01:00the Japanese.
01:53The Burmese jungle, a steam bar closing out the sky, dense, imprisoning, and a long way
02:20from home.
02:21I'd never seen a jungle, I'd seen a forest, but I hadn't seen a jungle.
02:27We went in there, it was dark, dirty, damp, rain, there was all sorts of animal noises
02:33that we'd never heard before, it was really scary.
02:37I liked the jungle, and it did not have the fear it seems to have had for some of the
02:43Allied soldiers.
02:44It was a friendly place, dark, where you could cover yourself and camouflage yourself.
02:50Burma, jagged mountain and fetid swamp, clothed in jungle and scored by steep river valleys.
03:01Burma, endless green growth spawning every kind of disease, malaria, dysentery, scrub
03:12typhus, dengue fever, prickly heat, particularly in monsoon.
03:22Mud, it might have been Flanders in the First World War.
03:30The monsoon in Burma turned camps into swamps, roads into quagmires.
03:39After the rains, the country was just one great bowl of mud.
03:51For the British, Burma was a shield and barrier protecting their Indian empire.
03:57The Japanese saw they could use Burma to screen their new territorial gains in Southeast Asia,
04:03to cut the Allied supply route to China, and to secure new sources of oil and rice.
04:10In December 1941, they invaded.
04:12They had the advantage of surprise, and for this jungle war, they were thoroughly prepared.
04:21I don't think any country could have been more unprepared for war than Burma was at
04:27this particular time.
04:29The government was unprepared, the civil organization and the people were unprepared,
04:36and the defense forces practically didn't exist.
04:41Some of the Gurkha who came along had 400 recruits straight from the depot, and the
04:47British had been milked of reinforcements and officers to Europe, and you might say
04:54only the dull left behind.
05:02The Japanese from the start swept all before them.
05:11They used the jungle to outmarch and outmaneuver Britain's weak Burma army.
05:24The British retreated in confusion.
05:31It was a crashing disadvantage to me in the 1942 campaign, in that I hadn't got a wireless
05:39set which would contact my air support in Rangoon, and therefore, believe it or not,
05:48the only thing I could do was to tap in onto the railway telephone line, get the Babu in
05:59the post office in Rangoon, and try and persuade him that it was vitally important for me to
06:05be put on to Air Force headquarters.
06:11That was really one of the reasons why, in our withdrawal to the Sittang, we were terribly
06:18badly bombed by the RAF as well as by the Japanese Air Force.
06:28The Japanese had heavy air superiority.
06:31They bombed and strafed almost at will, spreading terror among raw troops and civilians.
06:44Only a small force of American volunteers and the few RAF planes that were in Burma
06:49challenged their dominance and rose to battle with them.
07:02The damage the Japanese bombers dealt was, as much as anything, psychological.
07:07People couldn't believe this was happening to peaceful Burma.
07:18Resistance, valiant at times, was swept aside.
07:34I was discharged from hospital at Mandalay, having broken three ribs, left absolutely
07:40stranded on the roadside.
07:42And a civilian picked me up, took me home to his house, and said, what did I do?
07:48And I said, I'm catering.
07:49Well, he said, if you like, you can come to our house and cook for us.
07:53We were there two hours, no more than that, when the message came through, evacuate the
07:58Japanese are here.
08:07The Japanese march north continued, leaving a trail of chaos and destruction the length
08:13of Burma.
08:15The British retreated.
08:19I had nothing, only what I stood up in.
08:22I raided someone's kit, found a stout pair of boots, and we began to walk.
08:43In the mounting confusion, the wounded were a problem.
08:48We had to leave, giving treatment and just bandage up, do best we could.
08:52Some we had to leave behind, others that we could put on transport to get them on the
08:56roads.
08:57This was all we could do, and eventually we had to finally give it up as a bad job and
09:02make our own way out, as we were only 24 hours in front of the Japanese through the length
09:07of Bethlehem.
09:18The Japanese took everything in their stride.
09:21Ahead of them, the last recourse of a retreating army, scorched earth.
09:34The Burmese seemed to have made the jungle their friend.
09:37They were racing to win the rich prize of Burma's oil, but found instead a blazing inferno.
09:44At one installation, 11 million pounds worth of oil and plant went up in 70 minutes.
09:55Refugees, Eurasians, Chinese, Indians.
10:04We saw die on the roadside.
10:06We just could do nothing about it.
10:07We just had to think about ourselves and go on.
10:13The Japanese were driving Burma people.
10:19In their thousands they were coming through.
10:20There were some terrible sights up there.
10:22Men were left behind, and it was heartbreaking very often just to see them being separated
10:27from their people, wondering whether they'd ever meet up with them again.
10:30They were dying in their hundreds.
10:32All they used to do then was just pile them up and throw petrol over them and set fire
10:36to them, and that was the end of those.
10:48We had to hack our way through virgin jungle, practically, to get out of that country, and
10:53we had to find our own way to India.
10:56I think the overall impression I had of that horrible trek out of Burma was that it seemed
11:01to bring the best and the worst out of people.
11:04Some people who I'd looked up to and respected I found I couldn't respect any more because
11:09they became entirely different on that march.
11:13In fact, I felt that it was a question of survival of the fittest.
11:20British prisoners, 5,000 in one engagement alone.
11:25The Japanese despised those who surrendered.
11:29They believed soldiers should fight to the death.
11:34We felt the British officer was a very good fighter, although the ones we captured, they
11:39always said to me, we will win the war, you see.
11:42Now this I couldn't understand, because here is a man who has surrendered, and he still
11:47says, yes, we will win the war.
11:59Through the deserted cities of Burma, the conquering Japanese marched in triumph.
12:19Burmese people were now exchanging one set of imperial masters for another.
12:30In five months by May 1942, the Japanese chased the British up past Rangoon through the Irrawaddy
12:37and Chintwin valleys to the frontiers of India and out of Burma altogether.
12:43It was the longest retreat in British history.
12:47The Japanese also drove another army, the Chinese, up to Mandalay towards China.
12:52The Chinese, at war with Japan since 1931, were protecting their supply line, the Burma
12:57Road.
13:00China was allied to the Western powers.
13:03In command of Chinese forces in Burma was the American General Stilwell.
13:07Stilwell, Chief of Staff to the Chinese Supreme Commander Chiang Kai-shek, watched America's
13:13interests.
13:15The commander-in-chief, India, was General Wavell.
13:20Transferred from the Middle East, he now faced a formidable foe with scanty resources.
13:26But while his Burma army licked its wounds, he planned a comeback, a limited offensive
13:30for late in 1942.
13:35Wavell chose to mount this offensive in the Arakan on the Bay of Bengal near the Indian
13:39border.
13:41After a hopeful beginning, everything went wrong.
13:45The British were outmanoeuvred and outfought again, and pushed back to their starting point.
13:50They still had not learned to adapt to the jungle.
13:54In the jungle, fortunately, the Burmese jungle, there are many bamboo groves, you see, and
14:00we, in Japan, we all eat bamboo shoots.
14:04So that there's a lot of natural food in the form of bamboo shoots all over the place.
14:09Apart from that, we all know that what a monkey can eat, we can eat too.
14:15So if you watch the monkeys and avoid what the monkeys also avoid, you're fairly safe.
14:20Apart from that, there are such creatures as bandicoots, type of rats, you see, and
14:25snakes, jungle lizards, and small lizards, you cut off their head and chop them up and
14:30make into curry, you know, mix with pepper, can make good curry.
14:35We have our meats and Yorkshire puddings and so forth.
14:38They lived on rice, and you can't get meat and Yorkshire pudding and greens and potatoes
14:42out there.
14:44So we had to reorganise ourselves and lived on the things that the army could produce
14:49for us, like corned beef, and this is the only place that I know where you could open
14:54up a tin of corned beef and pour it out like a liquid.
14:58One man who was going to use the jungle, Ord Winget, an experienced guerrilla fighter supremely
15:04unorthodox with a touch of the fanatic.
15:07Now he planned a raid deep in enemy territory to be supplied from the air.
15:13He commanded the Chindiths, ordinary British and Gurkha troops, but intensively trained.
15:21The first operation was initially to accompany a general advance into Burma, but the general
15:29advance was cancelled.
15:30However, Wavell wanted the expedition to go forward.
15:38February 1943, the first Chindith expedition.
15:42The going could not have been worse.
15:44Long distances in dense, hilly jungle, and always one more river to cross.
16:00The heat was extreme, drinking water was short, and malaria was rampant.
16:06But at last, the British were fighting as the enemy did, learning to turn the jungle
16:10to their own advantage, but still hating it.
16:20The heat and the smell of the jungle was vile, very vile.
16:26You couldn't live in the jungle for an eternity, you'd never stand the smell of it.
16:36Even when you went downhill, you knew you had to go uphill again.
16:39And we were carrying 60 to 70 pounds an hour pack, five days rations, plus arms, ammunition.
16:45You think, oh, would it ever end?
16:48Just went on, and on, and on, then the rain, and of course, the fear that you would be
16:54ambushed or attacked.
16:58It was absolute hell in the first Wengate expedition, where jungle was a friend of
17:09the Japanese, but our enemy.
17:12We were wet all the time, and while we were wet, we got the leech onto our bodies.
17:18They were there all the time because of the dampness of it.
17:22They got onto your body, they sucked the blood from your body, and unless you burned them
17:26the right way with the cigarette in, they'd fell off and left black spots all over your body.
17:32Once they had their fill of blood, they dropped from your body and burst inside your clothes,
17:38and you were smothered in blood.
17:50The thought that you would get wounded and have to be left behind, that was always in
17:54our minds, I think.
17:55I'm sure it was in most people's minds.
17:58I saw chaps having to be left behind.
18:00Hand grenade, pistol, flask of water, water bottle, rations, and they just propped up
18:08against a tree, left.
18:13450 died.
18:17For some, a simple cross in a jungle clearing.
18:24In June, after four months, the first Chindits returned from Burma.
18:28Out of the 3,000 men who had gone in, less than 2,000 came back.
18:33Weary and emaciated, most had marched a thousand jungle miles.
18:41Whatever the expedition's military results, it did teach valuable lessons in jungle operations,
18:47in air supply, and in morale.
18:51This was a raid.
18:53Its effects, its tactical and strategical effect, was not great.
18:58Its main effect was on the morale of the British and Indian troops.
19:03Our forces were not picked men.
19:06They were ordinary British and Gurkha battalions.
19:09And the rest of the army said, my God, if those people can do it, we can.
19:15Very slowly, the British were getting the measure of the jungle.
19:19They loathed its stench, its sticky heat.
19:22It was hard for them to realise that the jungle was neutral.
19:26Hello, Tommy, where are you?
19:34Hello, Tommy, where are you?
19:39It's hard and thick. Come and help me.
19:42The enemy carried on a crude but effective war of nerves.
19:46The troops still thought of the Japanese soldier as master of the jungle.
19:50A man who could go for days on a handful of rice,
19:53didn't seem to know the meaning of fear, would never surrender,
19:57was perhaps unbeatable.
20:06A sort of superman.
20:09The Japanese was a good soldier.
20:12He was a good soldier.
20:14If he was told to do a job, he would stop there until he died.
20:18Animals were great soldiers, great fighting soldiers.
20:23Their battle drill was fantastic.
20:26You couldn't help but admire them.
20:29If they were ambushed, they were at you in 20, 30 seconds.
20:33They were pounding you with their mortars.
20:36And in frontal attacks, nobody could beat them, I think.
20:39They would just come on and on and on.
20:42He hadn't the mentality, I suppose, to think for himself.
20:45He just obeyed orders.
20:47And he came at you with everything he had,
20:50even if he meant losing his life.
20:52He just... he didn't care about life.
20:55We have been taught from the very beginning that we must...
20:59Our lives as emperors.
21:02For instance, when I left for war duty,
21:07I had to clip my nails and hair and write the last will and testament.
21:11Because from that moment, our lives are in the emperor's hands, you see.
21:15In other words, my family will put that in the urn
21:19in case my body is not recovered anywhere.
21:22So our training is to die for the emperor, you see.
21:37THE END
22:07THE END
22:37The thing was to get drunk very quickly.
22:39Sing songs.
22:41And because the limitation of the girls,
22:43only the higher officers got them later, you see.
22:46But the songs would be like...
22:48I think the English have a song called
22:50Roll Me Over in the Clover
22:52and you go one, two, three, four, like this.
22:54All the songs are very similar.
22:56It's always one, two, three, like this, you see.
22:58And similar in content, too.
23:01For the enlisted men,
23:05our entertainment, because of...
23:07You're entertaining only between battles
23:10or on one day's leave, and you may die next day.
23:13We don't have too much time for any length of entertainment.
23:16We go straight to the comfort girls.
23:19You pay your money,
23:21and you come out feeling refreshed and like a new man.
23:27Most of the comfort girls for the enlisted men were Koreans.
23:31And I must say, I respect all of them very much
23:33because who else would come to the front lines
23:35to give us the last entertainment for us,
23:39for many of us, on this earth?
23:42The British had their own very different entertainment.
23:46Burma was the furthest point,
23:49and very few artists were going there.
23:51So I said, right, that's for me.
23:53They really thought they were the forgotten army,
23:56and I think they probably were.
23:58In fact, just for them to see me was quite a lot to them.
24:02Because that I had gone to all the trouble
24:07and travelled so far just to see them
24:11made them feel that they weren't a long way from home, you know.
24:15If I could pop on a plane and nip out there,
24:18they weren't too far away and not forgotten.
24:21In this jungle stalemate, the message was certainly welcome.
24:32♪
24:41♪ It's a lovely day tomorrow
24:49♪ Tomorrow is a lovely day
24:55♪ Come and feast your tear-dimmed eyes
25:02♪ On tomorrow's clear blue skies
25:09♪ If today your heart is weary
25:16♪ If every little thing looks gray
25:22♪ Just forget your troubles
25:26♪ And learn to say
25:32♪ Tomorrow is a lovely day
25:42APPLAUSE
25:46ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
25:50October 1943. Things are looking up.
25:53Lord Louis Mountbatten arrives as supreme commander
25:56of a newly created Southeast Asia Command.
25:59His mission? To end the stalemate and knock out the Japanese.
26:03ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
26:06Mountbatten's immediate aim was to rebuild morale
26:10in an army that felt itself forgotten
26:12and wondered why it was there.
26:15We shall march, fight and fly through the monsoon, he declared.
26:22Another new appointment.
26:24General Bill Slim, commander of the newly formed 14th Army.
26:29He knew Burma and he knew the Japanese.
26:32ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
26:39Bill Slim was essentially a soldier's general.
26:45Watchful of his troops' well-being,
26:47he wanted them fit and ready to go over to the attack.
26:51ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
26:54♪ Bless them all, bless them all
26:58♪ The long and the short and the tall
27:02The long and the short and the tall
27:04Where, in this case, two-thirds of them Indian troops.
27:08♪ And they're thinking, sons,
27:10♪ Because we're saying goodbye to them all
27:14♪ As back to their billets they crawl
27:18♪ You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean
27:22♪ So cheer up, my lads, bless them all
27:26Malaria.
27:28At the first Arakan, this and other diseases
27:31had claimed 120 victims to every battle casualty.
27:35I had malaria 17 times.
27:37The last time they thought I had spinal malaria,
27:40I couldn't walk and I couldn't even move me arms.
27:43And I was getting inoculations all day and every day,
27:46three times a day.
27:49To stamp out the scourge at source,
27:51clouds of a new insecticide, DDT,
27:54were sprayed over the swampy breeding grounds.
27:58HEAVY MACHINERY
28:08December 1943, a second offensive at Arakan.
28:13The Japanese counterattacked.
28:15One enemy force advanced north, wheeled behind the British
28:19and turned west to capture Natchitoke or Okeedoke Pass.
28:24Another split the British divisions and encircled one of them.
28:36British and Indian units, trapped in a small enclave,
28:39fought for their lives.
28:45Isolated groups fought on, surrounded.
28:49A skeleton force held out against an entire Japanese division
28:53in what came to be known as the admin box.
28:57Clerks, mechanics, drivers, even a general joined in.
29:02In the first Arakan operation, the troops had withdrawn.
29:06Now, on Slim's express orders, there was no withdrawal.
29:12They were supplied from the air.
29:19By day and night, the planes of troop carrier command
29:23flew in to drop essential stores.
29:34What seemed certain defeat was averted by this tactic of air supply.
29:49Casualties were heavy.
29:51The wounded were tended in improvised dressing stations.
29:55Surgeons performed major operations in sweating heat, plagued by flies.
30:19At one field hospital, doctors, medical orderlies and wounded alike
30:23were butchered by Japanese.
30:32The sufferings of prisoners taken by the Japanese
30:35also stirred the troops to fury.
30:38Thousands of Allied prisoners of war slaved and died,
30:42building the Burma Railway.
30:44They captured us.
30:46From then on, we were no longer men.
30:51They literally despised us for giving in.
30:58We didn't have the food.
31:00We didn't have the clothes.
31:02For giving in.
31:05We didn't have the food.
31:07We had to work anything up to 16, 18 hours a day.
31:17If you argued with one, if you hit one,
31:20you automatically got six set about you.
31:25And they thought nothing of beating you until your arm was broke,
31:29your leg was broke.
31:32They'd send him outside the guard room in the blazing sun.
31:36Take a great delight in pricking him with a bayonet point
31:40to make him stand upright.
31:47There were men with terrible ulcers
31:49and the only treatment they had was taking maggots
31:51and dropping the maggots onto the ulcers
31:53and letting the maggots go round and round the ulcers
31:55and eat out the pus and clean the ulcers out
31:57and that's the only treatment we had for them.
32:00To find a chap that was 12 stone down to about 5 stone
32:05and crawling about trying to beg for food or scrambling for food,
32:09I mean, it took some living with it.
32:13At that time I was going to the toilet on all fours
32:17because my bowels had dropped.
32:20The latrines were concrete.
32:23The top was just one absolute sea of maggots.
32:27This chap in particular was in such a bad way,
32:30I think it was cerebral malaria,
32:32that they found him with his head down there.
32:35He'd committed suicide.
32:42A very close friend of mine in my own regiment,
32:45he'd suffered from everything, from beriberi, cholera.
32:50When he died, it was just skin, skin over a skeleton,
32:56nothing else.
32:57His legs had been eaten away with ulcers
33:00and there was just nothing of him.
33:02I only just recognised him.
33:09And there were 16,000 died just on the railway.
33:13For every sleeper that was laid there was a human life given up
33:17with a proper food, proper treatment.
33:20We could have carried on, built a blasted railway
33:23and thought nothing of it.
33:27I could never understand people being like that.
33:35So terrible in things that they'd done
33:40and the sadistic nature of them.
33:43Thinking of this, I felt sorry for them as much as anything.
33:57GUNFIRE
34:08Japanese troops would die rather than surrender.
34:12Dig themselves in, resist to the end.
34:15But now it changed.
34:19At Arakan, some Japanese gave themselves up.
34:21They'd had enough.
34:23The superman myth was exploded.
34:26These troops were not unbeatable.
34:28But many Japanese wounded still took the traditional way out.
34:33It was almost impossible to take care of the wounded.
34:37And the wounded, knowing this, would ask the comrades
34:40to please give them a grenade so that they can commit suicide.
34:43And maybe three or four wounded who could not walk
34:46could commit suicide that way.
34:54We picked up a number of Japanese who'd been badly shot up.
34:58It was quite necessary in our little field hospitals
35:01to tie their hands down because if you didn't do that,
35:04they merely tore at their bandages, opened their wounds
35:08and literally tried to commit suicide.
35:17Late in 1943, from Lido on the India-Burma border,
35:22Stilwell and the Chinese advanced to open the way for a new route,
35:26the Lido Road, joining the old Burma Road at Bamo.
35:32The Chinese had to fight to clear the path
35:35which would lead them back to China.
35:40Stilwell's two divisions went ahead, seeking out the enemy.
35:52GUNFIRE
36:05Edging south-eastwards, in three hard months,
36:08they killed 4,000 Japanese.
36:15Behind them came the engineers, blasting as they went.
36:22And in their thousands, the labourers who would build the highway.
36:36The Lido Road, driven hundreds of miles through atrocious country,
36:40was to ensure continued supplies to China.
36:47For Stilwell's troops, conditions were as hard
36:50as anywhere in Burma.
37:01From Wingit too, a new offensive.
37:04Promoted general, he was to lead,
37:06despite opposition from more orthodox colleagues,
37:09a second Chindit expedition to the interior.
37:12They flew in and were again supplied from the air.
37:17March 1944, Operation Thursday.
37:21Air transport for 10,000 men
37:24and 1,000 pack animals with stores
37:27to jungle sites deep in enemy territory.
37:33SIREN BLARES
37:46GUNFIRE
38:00Landing so many gliders in rough, hostile country
38:03was a formidable hazard.
38:06Guerrilla fighting was new to most of them.
38:09In spite of their training, this was a venture into the unknown.
38:17THUNDER RUMBLES
38:20GUNFIRE CONTINUES
38:23THUNDER RUMBLES
38:45Now, the second Wingit operation
38:48was ten times the size of the first.
38:51The object was, in effect,
38:54to cut the lines of communication of the Japanese.
38:58North Burma is like a great bowl
39:01with mountains all the way round
39:04and communications running to the rim of the bowl.
39:09We fanned out to cut these lines of communication.
39:14THUNDER RUMBLES
39:17The Chindits were on their own, marooned in mid-Burma,
39:21hundreds of miles from their base.
39:24But now it wasn't hit and run.
39:27This time they fought pitched battles.
39:30GUNFIRE
39:46GUNFIRE
40:00The bombers were called in time and time again
40:03to save a tricky situation.
40:06Early on, the leader, Wingit, was killed in an air crash.
40:12The operation went on.
40:16We just marched on our own two feet with militaires.
40:20If we was taken ill, we were just sort of slung off across the pony
40:24till such time your temperature went down in your body.
40:27And after about two days, you was slung off the pony
40:30and another unfortunate got put on back on.
40:35Any units operating in those circumstances
40:38have to be mobile all the time.
40:41And a wounded, of course, immediately bring you to a halt.
40:45Fortunately, Wingit was able to obtain assistance from the United States
40:49and we were given some remarkable aircraft,
40:52which was a very short take-off landing aircraft
40:55and could get into any little valley or bit of paddy and field and so on
41:00and evacuate our wounded for us.
41:05Long weeks in the jungle, weeks of dysentery, jaundice,
41:09jungle sores and malaria.
41:12Aircraft like this meant rescue for thousands, sick as well as wounded.
41:21The Chindits killed Japanese where they thought they were safe
41:25and forced them to divert troops from other purposes.
41:29Fighting without respite in these conditions, told on the toughest.
41:34Most of the brigades, through casualties and disease,
41:38they'd been behind the lines for four to five months,
41:41were finished.
41:43My own brigade had only 300 fit men out of the 4,000 who originally came in.
41:56Meanwhile, pushing down from the north were Merrill's Marauders.
42:05Named after their leader, Brigadier General Merrill,
42:08the Marauders were American volunteers.
42:15Among their targets, the important airfield of Michina.
42:19But the Japanese again had launched an offensive themselves.
42:23In March 1944, three divisions crossed the Chindwin
42:27to attack Kohima and Imphal, inside India itself.
42:31One division struck towards Kohima, two towards Imphal.
42:35They advanced rapidly, threatening to isolate both objectives.
42:42From the Chindwin River to Michan, there are many precipitous mountains
42:46sticking out like the fingers of the hand.
42:49We advanced, climbing up and down these steep mountains.
42:55On the map, the distance is only about 150 kilometres.
42:59But when the mountains and valleys were taken into consideration,
43:02it was about 300 kilometres.
43:05Without rest or sleep, it took our 13 days to reach Michan,
43:09where we cut the road.
43:13For the Japanese, Kohima was a tempting prize.
43:16Its capture would cut the Allies' supply line to the great base at Imphal.
43:20The British aircrews flew dangerous sorties to prevent their advance.
43:51But the columns came on.
44:06Steadily, the enemy tightened their circle round Kohima.
44:10They squeezed the small garrison into a tiny central area.
44:15Losses were heavy.
44:17Reinforcements desperately needed.
44:20I sent the 2nd British Division down to support the fighting at Kohima,
44:25and they went in to Kohima.
44:27The front line was on either side of the district commissioner's tennis court.
44:33They stood shoulder to shoulder.
44:35Where they were killed, they were buried.
44:38Out of three British infantry brigades,
44:42two brigadiers killed, two brigadiers and the replacements seriously wounded.
44:47That's what the fighting was like in Kohima.
44:50They attacked us at the tennis courts,
44:54and it was just like playing tennis.
44:57So much so that I would believe that the area
45:00from one side of the tennis court to the other
45:03was the positions between the Japanese and the platoon I was with.
45:07The fighting I saw was literally hundreds at a time coming towards us.
45:12The manpower strength just pushed us back
45:15from one trench to a trench ten foot behind us.
45:18Eventually, they kept overrunning us due to the manpower.
45:23Kohima was the ordinary soldier's battle.
45:26Small groups of Japanese and British fought hand to hand.
45:31EXPLOSION
45:35Every one of us was blind.
45:37If we put our hands up and surrendered,
45:40our battalion would have been finished.
45:42We knew that if the Japs had got us,
45:45they would have shot us and tortured us,
45:47like they did to some of our boys.
45:50So we stayed in the holes and prayed to God.
45:53After the first seven or eight days,
45:57the ammunition, the food was running out.
46:00Walton was almost nonexistent.
46:02Then we were told that the second British was on their way to get us out.
46:07EXPLOSIONS
46:13At last, they got there.
46:15The British were now struggling
46:17to force the Japanese back from the ridge they had seized,
46:20and a continuous artillery duel went on.
46:23EXPLOSIONS
46:26Japanese had started with a force of 15,000
46:30against a garrison of 3,500.
46:33EXPLOSIONS
46:49When the British supplies dwindled,
46:52they were replenished entirely from the air.
46:58I think everyone on the ground felt
47:01just how much they owed to these aircrews
47:04who were going flat throughout the day
47:06and sometimes during the night.
47:08And at that time of the war,
47:10there weren't that number of spare crews around,
47:14so that each crew had its aircraft
47:17and that aircraft had to be kept flying,
47:19and they were going absolutely flat out.
47:27EXPLOSIONS
47:29Kohima was relieved after seven weeks.
47:32The troops could now see the suicidal price
47:35the Japanese had paid in their bid to capture it.
47:38They were fanatics.
47:40When I mean fanatics, you could be holding a position
47:43there about 30 yards away from you,
47:46and all of a sudden they come flying at you,
47:48shouting and yelling.
47:50It always amazed us, or amazed me rather,
47:53how anybody could come flying at you,
47:55only expecting to kill you, with shouting at you.
47:58I know it nerves you and all that,
48:00but you can get used to this, eventually.
48:03And when we did get used to it,
48:05this is where we took a great toll of the Japanese.
48:07We just held fire and just got in,
48:09and said, you shout on, lad, and you come on.
48:11And they came on and they felled up in front of our trenches,
48:15our little weapon pits.
48:20Fighting the Japanese was totally committed war.
48:24There was no question of heroics, mock heroics,
48:28or chivalry in the sense that one read about
48:31prior to the war with Biggles.
48:34We were totally committed to killing as many Japanese as possible,
48:40probably prompted by the fact that we knew from bitter experience
48:44that there had been atrocities,
48:46and we were always fearful of the fact that
48:48we didn't wish to be taken prisoner.
48:53I seen one of our lads tied up with danik wire.
48:56I don't want to say no more.
49:00It was impossible to feel sorry or pitiful for them,
49:05because we knew what they'd done to our boys.
49:11They didn't give us a chance,
49:14and we didn't give them a chance.
49:31After Kohima, the relief of Imphal.
49:35Fighting there had been as bloody as at Kohima, and as heroic.
49:40The Japanese now had to be cleared from the Kohima-Imphal road.
49:50In July 1944, the Japanese broke off the offensive.
49:56Kohima and Imphal had been the high point of the Japanese effort.
50:02They will never come back, said General Slim.
50:11On Stilwell's front, the Chinese, with Merrill's marauders,
50:15had taken Machina airfield, but with heavy casualties.
50:20Under monsoon skies, more wounds to be dressed.
50:25Under monsoon skies, more wounds to be dressed.
50:45Mountbatten had said the troops would fight through the monsoon.
50:50Now, in the deluge, they were driving the Japanese back across the Burmese frontier.
50:55Ahead, the long road that had come two years before.
50:59Mandalay, Rangoon, and much bitter fighting.
51:04There would be no rest till all the Japanese in Burma were defeated and destroyed.
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