Nunshigum
On April 13th, 1944, was fought one of the most crucial actions in the great battle for IMPHAL, the most fiercely contested battle of the Burma campaign. In March of that year, the Japanese 15th Army, moving swiftly through the jungle and crossing the mountains of the North East frontier of India, cut the land communications of the British and Indian troops of 4th Corps. Thereafter, the only link between this large force, amounting to nearly one hundred thousand men, and the outside world was by air. All the supplies, petrol and ammunition to enable it to fight had to be flown into the airfields on the Imphal Plain.
NUNSHIGUM, a dominating hill standing almost four thousand feet above sea level and rising abruptly from the parched rice fields, lay six miles from Imphal, around which, besides the airfields, were all the dumps, the hospitals, the workshops and the 4th Corps Headquarters controlling the battle. The loss of this base could have been disastrous.
On 6th April, part of the Japanese 51st Regiment attacked NUNSHIGUM, the hill was lost and won again and again, until finally on 11th April the enemy firmly established themselves upon it. Now, only scattered defences, largely manned by administrative troops, lay between the enemy and the hub of the defence. The security of the whole Corps was threatened and the recapture of NUNSHIGUM was imperative. The troops allotted for the operation were 1st Battalion The Dogra Regiment supported by B Squadron the 3rd Carabiniers, with the artillery of 5th Indian Division and three squadrons of the Royal Air Force in support. The plan involved an advance on two separate company axes up neighbouring spurs of the hill. Each company was supported by a troop of tanks, with two troops in squadron reserve, and half squadron headquarters with the left hand company. The attack began at 1030 hrs. on the 13th April, without prior reconnaissance by those taking part, due to shortage of time. Known enemy positions were shelled by the artillery and attacked by aircraft as the attackers climbed the hill. The enemy occupied strongly defended bunkers on the twin peaks of Nunshigum, one behind the other. Most of the advance was screened from their view by a series of false crests and involved a climb of a thousand feet above the plain. After an hour the first peak was reached and action joined. The only feasible tank route was astride the crest of a razor-backed ridge along which tanks had to move, perforce, in single file. So steep were the slopes that one tank, overbalancing, fell a hundred feet, but ended its fall on its tracks and the crew survived. The hill was covered with scrub and bushes affording good cover for dug-in infantry, and the attackers came under fire at ranges of a few yards. Tank commanders could not close down if they were to guide their drivers and retain control in these circumstances. The first officer casualty was Lieutenant Neale, shot through the head. Shortly after, the Squadron Leader, Major Sanford, whose father commanded the Regiment twenty years before, was similarly killed. About this time the commander of the left hand company, Major Jones, was wounded. The commanderless tanks were withdrawn with difficulty and Lieutenant Fitzherbert, now in command, continued the attack with the remaining tanks. Within fifteen minutes both he and the commander of his leading tank, S.Q.M.S. Branstone, were killed, as was Sergeant Doe. Other crew members attempting to take over in these tanks became casualties also. At this moment B Company Commander, Major Alden, was wounded while directing the fire of a tank. All the British officers in the two companies of the Dogra Regiment were now casualties. It became clear that a relieving commander would have to be sent up the hill to take command of the operation, now apparently leaderless. Meanwhile, deterred by neither casualties nor confusion, Squadron Sergeant Major Craddock assumed command of B Squadron. He and Subedar Ranbir Singh, the senior surviving Viceroy’s Commissioned Officer, together replanned the attack. They closed once more with the bunker positions, were forced back; repositioned the tanks, notably Sergeant Hannam’s directly above an enemy bunker; finally destroyed the bunkers and their occupants, and gained the day.By 1400 hrs, the peaks were in friendly hands. The enemy fled leaving over 270 dead. An hour later the relieving British Officer arrived to find, in his own words, ‘The position entirely satisfactory and consolidation nearly complete.’ Thus, as a result of this supremely gallant action, the very serious threat to 4th Corps was removed. Never again did NUNSHIGUM fall into enemy hands.