October 2024

Many will know the Kohima Epitaph heard at Remembrance events on and around November 11. “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.”

Fewer may know why it is called Kohima and that Kohima, along with Imphal, was a critical battle in India that proved a turning point in the war with Japan. Kohima displayed the bravery of the vastly outnumbered 4th Battalion of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment in April 1944. Some 446 QORWK soldiers were part of a force of local and British soldiers who faced snipers, fierce hand-to-hand fighting, mortar and shell fire, as Sylvia May explained in her moving talk to more than 30 MMF friends and guests in the Museum Friends’ Shop on October 10, 2024.

Monsoon rain turned Kohima’s hilly terrain, with Garrison Hill at its epicentre, into a quagmire and filled potholes with water. It was steamy hot. Soldiers were covered by flies. Forced to retreat to the house of the District Commissioner, C Company of QORWK, by then a slender force of just 40, valiantly defended a small area dominated by a tennis court. On April 20, the QORWK regiment was relieved by the Royal Berkshires.

On April 20, the QORWK regiment was relieved by the Royal Berkshires. The names of the QORWK dead were engraved on a cross that can now be seen in the QORWK Museum, part of Maidstone Museum. The Kohima Epitaph is engraved on the memorial at Garrison Hill.

Kohima is in Nagaland and many Naga people played a vital role as stretcher bearers. Sylvia said: “Without the Nagas, the outcome may have been very different.” More than a dozen were given gallantry awards. To show gratitude and help the Naga people – 90 per cent Christian – Sylvia’s father Gordon Graham founded the Kohima Educational Trust in 2004. It awards scholarships to young Nagas and spreads the word about the battle through webinars and other activities. Annual services of remembrance are held. But as Gordon told his daughter: “Memories are important but it’s what you do with them that count.” Among the audience of more than 30 was Edna Crouch, whose late husband Leslie, had fought at Kohima and survived into old age, one of many heroes from that fateful but decisive battle. You can read more about it in Robert Street’s book The Siege of Kohima. For Books and further information, please visit www.kohimaeducationaltrust.net