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Auction: 24003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 195

'The credit for this action must go almost entirely to the 4th Battalion, The Royal West Kent Regiment which, by its timely arrival and by its refusal to give up a position which seemed hopeless, meet and broke the victorious and fanatical advance of the whole Japanese 31st Division.

During the fortnight which the Battle lasted, well over a thousand casualties were inflicted on the enemy. The fact that the R.W.K.'s beat off no less than 25 major attacks, and suffered more than 250 casualties out of a total Battalion strenght of 500, testifies the ferocity of the fighting.'

Major Short in The Queen's Own Gazette, refers.

A rare Immediate Defence of Kohima M.M. awarded to Corporal G. H. T. Archer, The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (6030704 Pte. G. H. T. Archer. R.W.K.), mounted as worn, good very fine

M.M. London Gazette 27 July 1944. The original Recommendation states:

'At KOHIMA on the evening of 10 April 1944 Private Archer was on duty as Signaller in his Company HQ when the position was subjected to heavy artillery and mortar fire. The first salvo severed the telephone line.

Private Archer opened up on his wireless set and then immediately went out to mend the line himself although the whole are was under very heavy fire.

On numerous occasions between 5-20 April Private Archer never hesitated to go out under shell and mortar fire to repair his telephone line. By his prompt actions and great devotion to duty Archer maintained under the greatest difficulty vital communications.

Recommended for an Immediate award of the Military Medal.'

George Thomas Henry Archer was born on Christmas Eve 1920 at Orsett, Essex and served with the famous 4th Battalion, The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment during the Defence of Kohima. Having been advanced Corporal, he was reduced in rank to Private in May 1946, having gone absent without leave. Having left the Army, he was a Plant Operator at Tilbury Docks living at 5 Hume Avenue, Tilbury. Archer died on 11 September 1989.

Kohima

Ferocious hand-to-hand combat, constant sniping and shocking casualties were all hallmarks of the two-week action that was fought out atop the hillocks and ridge that constituted the garrison of Kohima. One Great War veteran, who was unlucky enough to find himself embroiled in this extraordinarly bloody contest, likened the battle-scarred terrain to that of the Somme. But here his comparison ended for overall conditions were undoubtedly worse. And with the possible exception of the Rorke's Drift, there can be few other occasions where elements of the British (and Indian) Army had faced such a 'David and Goliath' contest: attracting the wrath of a 20,000-strong enemy Division, hellbent on pushing through to India, just one Battalion of the Royal West Kents, some men of the Assam Regiment and Rifles, and a handful of supporting arms - with the burden of 1500 non-combatants - held out for two weeks until relieved. Such was the close proximity of the enemy that one of the features of the battle was a back and forth contest over the District Commissioner's tennis court.

With heavy losses at sea in the Pacific and faltering home production, Japan, in early 1944, looked to its Army for a spectacular victory and pinned its hopes on an all out attack on British India sustained by the capture of Allied supplies. There was good British intelligence regarding the offensive and a plan to pull back from the Chindwin and fight the Japanese on the Imphal Plain. But the speed and weight of the enemy's advance was unforseen. In the first days of April, as the 17th and 22nd Indian Divisions fought to extricate themselves from the Japanese 33rd and 51st Divisions, Lieutenant-General Sato Kotokui's 31st Division advanced rapidly through impossible hill country on the most vulnerable of British objectives, the Dimapur railhead. All that lay in the way was the administrative hill station of Kohima and a decidedly scratch garrison, comprising the Assam Regiment, some Nepalese troops and two Companies of the Burma Rifles.

On 4 April 1944, forward elements of the Japanese 31st Division began to infiltrate the northern part of Kohima, while Sato himself set up a Command Post to the east, enjoying a panoramic view of the battlefield. His Division, standing at a strength of almost 20,000 bayonets, was one of the most formidable of the Imperial Army and for the most part consisted of men of impressive height and physique recruited in the Northern Islands of Japan, where feudal tradition was strong and daily life harsh. Highly motivated and aggressive after six years of soldiering in China, they were honoured to be leading the 'March on India' and would demand some stopping. Just how stalwart a foe Sato's Division proved is reflected in a single stark statistic: just 3,000 of his men returned over the Chindwin.

On the day following Sato's first excursion into the northern part of Kohima, a seemingly ordinary Territorial Battalion of a British Line Regiment, the 4th Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment, leading 161st Brigade, managed to get into Kohima before the road was cut behind them and join the resident garrison. A Battery of Indian Gunners, who likewise got through, often found themselves fighting as Infantrymen, the closeness of the enemy preventing them from bringing their guns into action. As night fell, Colonel Laverty, Archer's C.O., took command of the perimeter and attempted to address the awesome task that lay ahead. Food and ammunition were plentiful, but water was desperately scarce, the main reservoir having fallen into Japanese hands, a factor made all the more painful by the necessity of having to support some 1,500 Indian non-combatants. Moreover, facilities for the wounded were virtually non-existent and the whole position was overlooked by the enemy whose snipers were active round the clock.

Colonel Laverty was not kept waiting for long. On 6 April Sato sent in a full scale Infantry attack from the south, supported by his Artillery and mortar fire, forcing Indian troops off one of the hillocks that formed the Kohima Ridge. During that same morning a Company of the 5/7th Rajputs from the main body of 161st Brigade found another route into Kohima. But this too was soon cut and the Brigade itself surrounded and besieged three miles away at Jotsoma on the Dimapur Road. As night fell, and the attention of the individual soldier was fixed on the slope ahead of him ending in a patch of dark, the first of numerous frenzied attacks came in. Mortar fire cut up the enemy in his forming-up areas, but otherwise fire was held until the Japanese were within a few yards of the forward weapon slits, and Bren-guns and grenades could kill scores in the open.

At dawn on 7 April, a Company of the Royal West Kents, notwithstanding a Japanese Field Gun firing over open sights, counter-attacked and cleared out the enemy who had infiltrated over night. Dozens of Japanese were killed and several taken prisoner. One of these, an Officer, was captured by Lance-Corporal Harman, whose gallantry in single-handedly storming two enemy positions typified the fighting spirit of the defenders, and famously resulted in the award of his posthumous V.C.; walking calmly back from his final sortie, he was hit in the side by a burst of machine-gun fire, but reached cover to say, ''I got the lot. It was worth it.''

From the morning of 10 April onwards, the vicinity of the District Commissioner's bungalow became the scene of the fiercest fighting. Nightly grenade battles were waged around the ruins of his residence and across the width of his tennis court. At times, however, the enemy assaults were broken up by the priceless fire of the Indian Mountain Artillery jammed inside the Brigade Box at Jotsoma. Forward Observation Officers of the 2nd (Derajat) Battery had entered Kohima at the same time as the Royal West Kents and, having been parcelled out to the Infantry, proved invaluable in calling down highly accurate defensive fire.

Meanwhile, the water shortage was becoming critical, the only source being the spring near the Commissioner's bungalow. Accordingly the ration was cut to a mug a day per man, especially after efforts to drop water inside motor tyre inner tubes from Dakotas, braving heavy Japanese ground fire, were unsuccessful. It was clearly essential to raise the siege and to that end, on 14 April, the newly arrived British 2nd Division managed to break through from Dimapur to join the 161st Brigade and bring its 72 guns into action. Even so, the position of the gallant defenders remained perilous in the extreme:

'As the sun rose on the morning of 18 April the gaunt survivors looked out over a scene of almost total devastation, with every tree and building blown to bits and the whole area littered with Indian, British and Japanese corpses - all infested with swarms of black flies. Over everything hung the stench of death and putrefaction. The enemy were within 100 yards of the Command Post and the Dressing Station where 600 badly wounded men lay helpless in a shallow slit trench. Most of the wounded had kept their personal weapon with one round in the breach, just in case. All suffered from the additional hazard posed by several hundred petrified non-combatants who were milling about completely out of control' (Burma Victory, by David Rooney, refers).

Finally, on 20 April, the Kohima garrison was relieved after two weeks of continuous close quarter fighting. It had held on just long enough to allow two complete Divisions to reach the battle area and prevent the invasion of India. David Rooney describes the scene as the Royal West Kents and their gallant comrades moved out:

'Their final view was one of utmost desolation. Jagged leafless tree stumps, churned-up earth, damaged weapons, blood-soaked clothes and boots, severed limbs scattered across the trenches, bloated corpses lying everywhere, and over all a mosaic of red, blue, green and white parachutes stretching down to Kuki Piquet'.

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Estimate
£4,000 to £6,000

Starting price
£3500