The Siege: A Story from Kohima

Quality Book Club Edition - in good condition - has markings from use - due to differing weights in books, postage maybe adjusted at checkout.

In March, 1944, the Japanese launched 100,000 men across the river Chindwin as a first step towards their invasion of India. They made at once for the towns of Imphal, Kohima and Dimapur, all placed on the only all-weather road running through the boundless tracts of jungle-clad mountains between Burma and India. They surrounded Imphal and sent a further column to capture the great base at Dimapur. Between Imphal and Dimapur and astride the Japanese lines of communication lay the small township of Kohima, five thousand feet high in the wild mountains. The day before the Japanese ring closed round the town the 4th Battalion of the Royal West Kent regiment, five thousand citizen soldiers with few professionals among them, drove in under heavy shell-fire. For the next sixteen days they held off a complete division of Japanese totalling some fifteen thousand troops.

Throughout the siege these five hundred men were short of food, water, ammunition and medical supplies. Both the fit and the wounded were subjected by day to the constant shelling and mortaring from hills overlooking the town and by night to unceasing attacks by vastly superior numbers. The siege started on 5th April 1944; it was raised on the 20th April by which time half of the five hundred men were casualties.

"The Siege" gives a thrilling and detailed account of those sixteen days; the tension of battle mounts as each day passes without relief. The story is true, but unreal. It is both exciting and inspiring and has not previously been told in any widely available form.