Kohima Museum - YorkAfter the Battle of Jessami, Lieutenant Colonel ‘Bruno’ Brown led his men of 1st Assam Regiment on a gruelling 78 mile march to Kohima, through relentlessly unforgiving terrain with the Japanese close behind them. They made it in 39 hours. Eighty years later, his grandaughter Charlotte Carty is making the same trek with other descendents of the 1st Assams & historian Robert Lyman. Go Charlotte!
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March 6th 1944.
Japanese 33rd Infantry Division began crossing Chindwin River, heading for Imphal.
We are very sad to announce the death of Lieutenant Colonel (Retd) Keith Old. He was a trustee of the Kohima Museum for a number of years and was assistant curator and treasurer. Our condolences to Keith’s family.
On February 4th 1944, in the Arakan region of north-west Burma, the Japanese 55th Division swept around the left flank of 7th Indian Division, using stealth, speed and cover of darkness to achieve complete surprise. As their HQ was overrun, scattered troops fell back to their Admin Box, where 7th Division’s administrative staff were based. The Box was surrounded by Japanese troops and Tokyo media proclaimed:
“New British 14th Army Destroyed in One Thrust”.
Surrounded on all sides by jungle-clad hills, Admin Box was entirely exposed to enemy snipers and mortars. Attacks came at night and on one night Japanese troops broke into the Field Ambulance and massacred doctors & patients. For ten days, the Box was bombed and strafed by enemy aircraft, until spitfires flying from India established air superiority; after that, rations & ammunition were supplied to the Box by parachute.
On February 24th, the siege was lifted by 5th Indian Division, fighting their way through from the west. Indian & British casualties were estimated at 2,000, including 500 dead; 5,000 Japanese dead were counted in the jungle around the Box.
General Slim wrote:
“For the first time, a British [and Indian] force had met, held & decisively defeated a major Japanese attack… It was a victory about which there could be no argument, and its effect, not only on the troops engaged but on the whole Fourteenth Army, was immense.
The legend of Japanese invincibility in the jungle … was smashed.“
Slim also said “it was the first occasion in this war in which a British force had withstood the full weight of a major Japanese offensive, held it, broken it, smashed it into little pieces and pursued it.
It was the turning point in the Burma Campaign.”
Indeed, after Admin Box the Japanese were never to win another major victory.
Bob White, latest addition to the curator team, has taken over administration of the museum’s website.
Until recently, the Kohima Museum in York concentrated almost completely on the British 2nd Infantry Division and the part this division played in the Burma Campaign. The artefacts and other items collected have reflected this and over the years many objects have been turned down as being outside this boundary.
With the shrinking number of veterans and the increasing number of family members wishing to learn more of the battles that their grandfathers, fathers and uncles fought in, it was decided that the scope of the Kohima collection should be broadened to encompass all of the Burma Campaign. This would also provide a growing centre for learning and research in the north of the country.
It was also realised that this small unfunded museum was the ONLY museum in the whole of the UK that provided a window to the longest running campaign of WW2. The remainder of the many thousands of men and woman who served in India and Burma and their families can come to the Kohima Museum in York to discover just what the men wore and what weapons they used. They can also see details of the Japanese forces who they fought so desperately to defeat.
There is a small but growing section of the display area devoted to the legendary Chindits plus a display highlighting the vital and crucial part played by the Allied Air Forces.
Talk of new displays cannot pass without mention of the Naga Hill tribes of North East India. The outcome of the Battle for Kohima might have turned out different had it not been for the total support given by the men women and even children of these tribes.
The Kohima Museum of the Burma Campaign is in the final stages of getting approval for a new Charter from the Charities Commission.
