From 3 April to 16 April, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the besieged British and Indian troops of IV Corps at Imphal were supplied.

By April 5 the British had been forced back onto the Kohima ridge.

But on April 14 the Japanese did not launch an attack and on the 15th British troops on Kohima ridge heard that the British 2nd Division was attacking along the Dimapur-Kohima road and had broken through Japanese road blocks.

Desperate defensive actions were fought at places such as Imphal, Sangshak and Kohima, while the RAF and USAAF kept the forces supplied from the air.

This, together with other factors such as famine and disorder in British India and the priority given by the Allies to the defeat of Nazi Germany, prolonged the campaign and divided it into four phases: the Japanese invasion which led to the expulsion of British, Indian and Chinese forces in 1942 ; failed attempts by the Allies to mount offensives into Burma, from late 1942 to early 1944 ; the 1944 Japanese invasion of India which ultimately failed following the battles of Imphal and Kohima ; and, finally, the successful Allied offensive which reoccupied Burma from late-1944 to mid-1945.

The 5th Indian Division ( joined by the 89th Indian Infantry Brigade which was flown in to replace the brigade sent to Kohima ) and 23rd Indian Division ( later replaced by the 20th Division ) tried capturing the steep ridges, such as the Mapao Spur, held by the Japanese, but found these to be almost impregnable.

** The Queen's Colours: Mons, Retreat from Mons, Aisne 1914, Ypres 1914 ' 15 ' 17 ' 18, Hill 60, Festubert 1915, Somme 1916 ' 18, Albert 1916 ' 18, Arras 1917 ' 18, Cambrai 1917 ' 18, Hindenburg Line, Italy 1917-18, Doiran 1917-18, Landing at Helles, Gaza, Jerusalem, Palestine 1917-18, Kut al Amara 1915 ' 17, Mesopotamia 1915-18, North West Frontier India 1915 1916-17, Dunkirk 1940, Normandy Landing, Caen, Rhine, North-West Europe 1944-45, Abyssinia 1941, El Alamein, Tebourba Gap, Hunt's Gap, Longstop Hill 1943, North Africa 1940-43, Sicily 1943, Salerno, Anzio, Cassino, Gothic Line, Italy 1943-45, Malta 1940-42, Malaya 1941-42, Hong Kong, Defence of Kohima, Burma 1943-45

John Lawrence Smyth, 1st Battalion, The Queen's Royal Regiment ( West Surrey ), was killed on 7 May 1944, during the first attack on Jail Hill at the Battle of Kohima.

* Second World War: St. Omer-La Bassée, Tilly sur Seulles, Le Havre, Antwerp-Turnhout Canal, Scheldt, Zetten, Arnhem 1945, North-West Europe 1940 ' 44-45, Abyssinia 1940, Falluja, Baghdad 1941, Iraq 1941, Palmyra, Syria 1941, Tobruk 1941, Belhamed, Mersa Matruh, Defence of Alamein Line, Deir el Shein, Ruweisat, Ruweisat Ridge, El Alamein, Matmata Hills, Akarit, Enfidaville, Djebel Garci, Tunis, Ragoubet Souissi, North Africa 1941-43, Trigno, Sangro, Villa Grande, Cassino I, Castle Hill, Hangman's Hill, Italy 1943-44, Athens, Greece 1944-45, Kohima, Chindits 1944, Burma 1943-45

* The Second World War: Defence of Escaut, Forêt de Nieppe, North-West Europe 1940, Alam el Halfa, El Alamein, Djebel Abiod, Djebel Azzag 1942, Oued Zarga, Djebel Ang, Medjez Plain, Longstop Hill 1943, Si Abdallah, North Africa 1942-43, Centuripe, Monte Rivoglia, Sicily 1943, Termoli, San Salvo, Sangro, Romagnoli, Impossible Bridge, Villa Grande, Cassino, Castle Hill, Liri Valley, Piedimonte Hill, Trasimene Line, Arezzo, Advance to Florence, Monte Scalari, Casa fortis, Rimini Line, Savio Bridgehead, Monte Pianoereno, Monte Spaduro, Senio, Argenta Gap, Italy 1943-45, Greece 1944-45, Leros, Malta 1940-42, North Arakan, Razabil, Mayu Tunnels, Defence of Kohima, Taungtha, Sittang 1945, Burma 1943-45

The Kohima Bench is located on the eastern slope of the Ministers ’ Hill in the capital city of Nagaland, Kohima.

By the morning of May 13, most of the positions in the Kohima region had been re-taken by the British and Indian forces ; a few, among them the DC's bungalow, were still holding out against the Dorsets and their supporting tanks.

** Mons ; Retreat from Mons ; Marne 1914, 18 ; Aisne 1914, 18 ; Messines 1914, 17, 18 ; Ypres 1914, 15, 17, 18 ; Neuve Chapelle ; Loos ; Somme 1916, 18 ; Arras 1917, 18 ; Scarpe 1917, 18 ; Cambrai 1917, 18 ; Lys ; Hindenburg Line ; Vittorio Veneto ; Macedonia 1915-18 ; Sari Bair ; Gallipoli 1915-16 ; Megiddo ; Kut al Amara 1917 ; Baghdad ; Kilimanjaro ; Dunkirk ; Normandy Landing ; Falaise ; Arnhem 1944 ; Lower Maas ; Ourthe ; Reichswald ; Defence of Habbaniya ; Tobruk 1941 ; Madagascar ; Gueriat el Atach Ridge ; Landing in Sicily ; Anzio ; Cassino II ; Malta 1940-42 ; Singapore Island ; Chindits 1943 ; North Arakan ; Chindits 1944 ; Imphal ; Kohima ; Nyaungu Bridgehead ; Burma 1943-45

Some of these battalions were to be garrison or rear area troops only, while others went on to serve with distinction in a number of theatres during the war including the Middle East and Burma, notably during the Arakan campaigns and at Kohima.

This second INA fought along with the Imperial Japanese Army against the British and Commonwealth forces in the campaigns in Burma, Imphal and Kohima, and later, against the successful Burma Campaign of the Allies.

The INA was to make its mark in the battle of Imphal where along with the Japanese 15th Army it breached the British defences in Kohima, reaching the salient of Moirang before Allied air dominance and compromised supply lines forced both the Japanese and the INA to lift the siege.

The battalion was involved in the Battle of Kohima in fierce fighting with the Japanese.

Together with the simultaneous Battle of Kohima on the road by which the encircled Allied forces at Imphal were relieved, the battle was the turning point of the Burma Campaign, part of the South-East Asian Theatre of the Second World War.

Mutaguchi ordered the Japanese 31st Division, which had retreated from Kohima when threatened with starvation, to join the 15th Division in a renewed attack on Imphal from the north.

Gurkhas advancing with tanks on the Imphal – Kohima road, March – July 1944

It is " When you go home ..." that was inspired by an epigram by the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos to the fallen at the Battle of Thermopylae, and was later used ( with a misquote ) for the memorial for those who fell at the Battle of Kohima.

His acting career was interrupted by wartime service between 1939 and 1945 with the London Irish Rifles and the Assam Regiment of the Indian Army in Burma, China and Kohima.

Used with article, Battle of Kohima.

They were trained as Chindits, to operate behind Japanese lines, who were at that time attacking India, they were formed into two columns, the 33rd and 76th, to operate behind the Japanese lines during the fierce battles for Imphal and Kohima.

Other elements fought in the defensive " boxes " around Kohima, whilst another, from the 4th Battalion trained as airborne troops and were dropped near the Sittang River behind Japanese lines.

Other units were directed to Imphal and Kohima, as well as to the protect Japanese Flanks to the south of Arakan, a task it successfully carried out.

However, his troops, who had the shortest and easiest route to Kohima, were delayed by a week.

Slim knew that there were few fighting troops as opposed to soldiers in line-of-communication units and supporting services in Kohima and none at all at the vital base of Dimapur to the north, until 161st Brigade arrived.

Neither the 31st Division which was fighting at Kohima nor the 15th Division had received adequate supplies since the offensive began, and their troops were starving.

During the Imphal and Kohima battles, they were able to make barely half a dozen significant raids.

By the end of the campaigning season both Kohima and Imphal had been relieved and the Japanese were in full retreat.

While a division advanced to Kohima to isolate IV Corps, the main body attempted to surround and destroy IV Corps at Imphal.

The defence operations at Kohima and Imphal in 1944 have since taken on huge symbolic value as the turning of the tide in British fortunes in the war in the East.

In the South-East Asian Theatre there was the siege of Singapore and in the Burma Campaign sieges of Myitkyina, the Admin Box, Imphal and Kohima which was the high-water mark for the Japanese advance into India.

* The Kohima Epitaph which is on the World War II War Memorial for the Allied fallen at the Battle of Kohima says:

Part of the plan involved sending the Japanese 31st Division ( which was composed of 58th Regiment, 124th Regiment, 138th Regiment and 31st Mountain Artillery Regiment ) to capture Kohima and thus cut off Imphal.

The Japanese who had been fighting to capture Kohima did not retreat at once, many of them stayed in the positions which they had captured and fought tenaciously for several more weeks.

This battle was ultimately to prove to be the turning point of the Battle of Kohima which was the turning point of the Burma Campaign.

In 2010, he published his first major history work Road of Bones: the Siege of Kohima 1944, an account of the epic battle which halted the Japanese invasion of India in 1944.

The territory of the Angami's is made up of the present Kohima district, which is divided into four regions:

The building where the Kohima Bench is, was earlier a Hostel which was renovated for the Kohima Bench.

161 Brigade joined XXXIII Corps, which was beginning to arrive at Dimapur, and fought in the Battle of Kohima while the remainder of the division reinforced IV Corps, whose land victory at Kohima and Imphal, in which the Division played an important part, proved to be the turning-point of the Burma Campaign.