'Aussie Rick'’s Comments (group member since Jun 12, 2009)

'Aussie Rick'’s comments from the THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP group.

"Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima" - The second Victoria Cross of the Kohima fighting was awarded to Captain John Randle, 2 Royal Norfolk Regiment. His citation reads:

"On the 4th May, 1944, at Kohima in Assam, a Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment attacked the Japanese positions on a nearby ridge. Captain Randle took over command of the Company which was leading the attack when the Company Commander was severely wounded. His handling of a difficult situation in the face of heavy fire was masterly & although wounded himself in the knee by grenade splinters he continued to inspire his men by his initiative, courage & outstanding leadership, until the Company had captured its objective & consolidated its position. He then went forward & brought in all the wounded men who were lying outside the perimeter.

In spite of his painful wound Captain Randle refused to be evacuated & insisted on carrying out a personal reconnaissance with great daring in bright moonlight prior to a further attack by his Company on the position to which the enemy had withdrawn.

At dawn on 6th May the attack opened, led by Captain Randle, & one of the platoons succeeded in reaching the crest of the hill held by the Japanese. Another platoon, however, ran into heavy medium machine gun fire from a bunker on the reverse slope of the feature. Captain Randle immediately appreciated that this particular bunker covered not only the rear of his new position but also the line of communication of the battalion & therefore the destruction of the enemy post was imperative if the operation was to succeed. With utter disregard of the obvious danger to himself, Captain Randle charged the Japanese machine gun post single-handed with rifle & bayonet. Although bleeding in the face & mortally wounded by numerous bursts of machine gun fire, he reached the bunker & silenced the gun with a grenade thrown through the bunker slit. He then flung his body across the slit so that the aperture should be completely sealed.

The bravery shown by this officer could not have been surpassed & by his self-sacrifice he saved the lives of many of his men & enabled not only his own Company but the whole Battalion to gain its objective & win a decisive victory over the enemy."

Captain John Randle:
https://victoriacrossonline.co.uk/joh...

Jonny wrote: "I'm making a start today on Jonathan Dimbleby's Endgame 1944; part of my brain somewhere is thinking I should have run through Barbarossa: How Hitler Lost the War f..."

I hope it's a good account Jonny. I have a copy to read once I can get access to my books.

Pick up a PB edition of this new release today; "The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb and the Fateful Decision to Use It" by Iain MacGregor.

The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb and the Fateful Decision to Use It by Iain MacGregor

"Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima" - The engineers at work again:

"At first light two companies of the 1/1 Punjabs counter-attacked the Japanese-occupied bunkers with supporting fire and smoke from the combined 'A' and 'C' Company of Royal West Kents, Corporal Norman:

We stood by to re-occupy the bunkers once the Punjabs cleared them [which they tried to do] for an hour without success, Then 2 Division Engineers used gun-cotton explosives to blow them up. We collected all the pieces of what turned out to be seventeen Japanese bodies and put them in a pit and burned them."

Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima by Leslie Edwards

Manray9 wrote: "From Stanley Falk's Seventy Days to Singapore: The Malayan Campaign, 1941-1942.

A testament to Japanese air superiority in the Malayan campaign: on the first morning of combat the R..."

That's a heavy loss for the RAF!

Jerome wrote: "A March 2026 release:

by Peter Mauch
Description:
The military general who became ..."

Should be an interesting book!

"Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima" - Some deadly sniping took place during the siege of Kohima:

"By this time the Japanese held all the ground east of the tennis court as well as the Deputy-Commissioner's Bungalow, and there were concealed snipers in some large cherry trees just beyond the tennis court where they had clear views of the Club House and Mound. As a consequence, company casualties were mainly from snipers - but they did now always have things their own way. Each Royal West Kent company had its own trained sniper. It is claimed that on one particular day one of these, a soldier called Cousins, shot seventeen Japanese.

One Japanese sniper tied himself to a tree where he had a good view of the Battalion Headquarters area on Garrison Hill. He then caused a great deal of trouble with an automatic until he was eventually shot dead by Laverty's batman Heffernan, his body hanging from the tree for the rest of the siege."

Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima by Leslie Edwards

Thank for those details, Mike!

"Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima" - Lance Corporal John Pennington Harman of the 4th Battalion, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 161st Indian Infantry Brigade, 2nd Division was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his actions at Kohima. His citation reads:

"In Burma at Kohima on 8th April, 1944, Lance-Corporal Harman was commanding a section of a forward platoon. Under cover of darkness the enemy established a machine-gun post within 50 yards of his position which became a serious menace to the remainder of his Company. Owing to the nature of the ground Lance-Corporal Harman was unable to bring the fire of his section on to the enemy machine-gun post. Without hesitation he went forward by himself and using a four second grenade which he held on to for at least two seconds after releasing the lever in order to get immediate effect, threw it into the post and followed up immediately. He annihilated the post and returned to his section with the machine-gun. Early the following morning he recovered a position on a forward slope 150 yards from the enemy in order to strengthen a platoon which had been heavily attacked during the night. On occupying his position he discovered a party of enemy digging in under cover of machine-gun fire and snipers. Ordering his Bren gun to give him covering fire he fixed his bayonet and alone charged the post shooting four and bayoneting one thereby wiping out the post. When walking back Lance-Corporal Harman received a burst of machine-gun fire in his side and died shortly after reaching our lines. Lance-Corporal Harman’s heroic action and supreme devotion to duty were a wonderful inspiration to all and were largely responsible for the decisive way in which all attacks were driven off by his Company."

Lance-Corporal Harman:
https://www.britishmilitaryhistory.co...

Manray9 wrote: "From Stanley Falk's Seventy Days to Singapore: The Malayan Campaign, 1941-1942.

Twenty hours before the launching of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a British Catalina flying b..."

A very interesting bit of information, thanks for sharing, MR9!

Manray9 wrote: "Tonight I've started Stanley Falk's account of the Japanese campaign to conquer Malaya and Singapore in 1941-42 --

[b..."

I hope its a decent account MR9. Let us all know how it goes.

I knew flour dust was fairly combustible. I liked the officer's comment that the subsequent fireball was 'fantastic', typical of an engineer!

"Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima" - British engineers involved in a counterattack on Detail Hill during the early stages of the siege. In this case they were asked to blow a hole into a brick wall of a bakery:

"It blew up making a nice neat hole, killing one or two Japanese at the same time. Then my men rushed in with grenades and four Bren-guns which I had acquired. My engineers operated as infantry and we knocked off quite a few Japanese as they tried to get out of the building. I myself stood up as if on a pheasant shoot and fired at two Japanese with a captured Japanese carbine I preferred to my service revolver. I missed them both.

Alongside the bakery was a godown (warehouse) full of flour. I was ordered to destroy the flour so I put a 'ring man' around and on top of the pile of flour bags/sacks. I rammed the detonator down and for a second nothing happened, as if the circuit was broken. Then 'Whoosh' the whole thing went up and I was horrified as it seemed to be a much bigger explosion than I had intended. What had happened was that minute bits of inflammable flour had been blown up into the air and suddenly ignited by secondary detonation creating a huge fireball. Fantastic." - Lieutenant John Wright, 2nd Field Company, King George V's Own Bengal Sappers and Miners.

Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima by Leslie Edwards

"Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima" - The Japanese advance towards Kohima saw a number of smaller advance garrisons overrun and captured, like Kharasom:

"The garrison realized that they would soon be completely overwhelmed and that further resistance was pointless. They also knew that they had already been bypassed by other Japanese troops, (probably part of 1/138 Battalion), marching in the direction of Jessami. Unaware that attempts being made to contact and assist them, the commander Captain Young ordered his men to withdraw that night and work their way through the jungle back to Kohima. At the same time, he let it be known that he was going to remain behind in strict compliance with his instructions never to surrender the position. He also considered that it would not be right to leave alone those too badly wounded to escape. Darkness fell and the Japanese put in one more assault, preceding it with a long mortar bombardment. The attack was expected and repulsed. Young's men then quietly withdrew. Young himself was last seen standing on the fire step of his bunker, stacking tommy-gun magazines on the parapet, piling quantities of hand grenades around him and passing a Bren-gun to a wounded sepoy. There were later reports of the sounds of heavy gunfire at Kharasom but Young and his wounded were never seen again. Three separate main groups of men eventually made their way west towards Kohima and 56 survivors arrived over the next few days."

Defending Kohima - the sacrifice of Captain John Young at Kharasom 1944:
https://www.kohimaeducationaltrust.or...

The Battle of Jessami & Kharasom:
https://www.kohimamuseum.co.uk/the-ba...

Glasgow honours 'forgotten hero' Lieutenant John Young:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...

Marc wrote: "Finished this one on Friday:

[book:Air Battles Before D-Day: How Allied Airmen Cr..."

Thanks for the heads-up!

"Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima" - The Japanese offensive has just started, and the British are starting to identify areas of concern:

"Giffard and Slim flew to Imphal to meet Scoones. It was acknowledged that there was a remote possibility that some Japanese might penetrate as far as the strategically important Dimapur. Slim learnt that Dimapur still had no combat troops specifically allocated to defend it. He recalled that when he asked the brigadier in charge of Dimapur what his ration strength was he was told 'Forty-five thousand, near enough.' In response to Slim's question 'How many soldiers can you scrape out of that lot?' he replied 'I might have five hundred who know how to fire a rifle'."

Kohima: The Furthest Battle: The Story of the Japanese Invasion of India in 1944 and the Battle of Kohima by Leslie Edwards

Liz V. wrote: "D-Day
https://nypost.com/2025/06/06/us-news...

I found this was one of the most touching remembrances."

Thanks for posting that link, Liz.

André, no we don't :)

Very interesting article, thanks for posting Liz.

Todd wrote: "I’m reading this again for the second time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3..."

I hope you enjoy it as much as the first time!