DIMAPUR, JAN 17 (NPN) : The famous Kohima War Cemetery has been featured by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as among the five sites with unusual features.
In its official website, CWGC said “The cemetery with a tennis court” has a feature that is possibly not shared by any other cemetery in the world.
“Each of our cemeteries tells its own story. As you walk through and read the names, dates and regiments on our headstones you can build an understanding of what happened to the men and women commemorated there. But you can also gather clues about the history of the world wars by looking at the physical features of a cemetery,” CWGC said.
In 1944, following hard fighting in the Burmese jungle, the Japanese forces in the region pushed across Chindwin River and into India. In their path was the 14th Army, made up of forces from across the Commonwealth. This invasion hinged upon two key points, Imphal and Kohima. Defeat for the 14th Army meant that the Japanese could strike further into India.
The town of Kohima was of key strategic importance, at the highest point of the pass through the jungle mountains to the city of Dimapur. If Dimapur fell, then the defenders at Imphal would be cut off without supplies. On 3 April, a Japanese force of 15,000 attacked Kohima and its 2,500 strong garrison. The ridges at Kohima led to two weeks of difficult, bloody fighting as the defending forces were pushed back to the former house of the British deputy commissioner.
CWGC said the surviving defenders, encamped around the garden tennis court, prepared for their final stand. As the Japanese forces prepared to attack, they were attacked in turn by the lead tanks of a relief force, saving the garrison and pushing the attackers back.
In the battle at the tennis ground (now marked by white concrete lines) of the Deputy Commissioner’s bungalow (which was destroyed during the war), which also involved hand-to-hand fighting between the opposing forces, the Commonwealth forces prevailed over the Japanese forces and forced them to retreat in defeat
Despite this setback, the Japanese force continued to fight for Kohima before they were finally forced to withdraw in May.
Those who had fallen in the defence of Kohima were buried on the battlefield, which later became a permanent CWGC cemetery, with further burials from the surrounding areas.
Colin St. Clair Oakes, who designed the cemetery incorporated the tennis court into the design, and it remains today, to commemorate the men who died in defence of the town.
The other unique sites include– ‘The cemetery in no man’s land’– Nicosia (Waynes Keep) Cemetery is located in the disputed area, a no man’s land that splits the island in two. Barriers have separated the Greek and Turkish sectors of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus.
‘The Crater Cemeteries’– Zivy Crater and Litchfield Crater are two small cemeteries in the Pas de Calais region in France. Both were formed around two craters less than a kilometre apart from one another.
‘The Eye Hospital’, it is the only memorial created by the Commission that was not in the form of a monument or cemetery was the Memorial Ophthalmic Laboratory at Giza, Egypt– complete with library, and bacteriology and pathology departments– as its memorial to men of the Egyptian Labour Corps and Camel Transport Corps.
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