The distance across a tennis court is 23.77 meters. At Kohima, in the spring of 1944, that distance was the entire width of the war. On one side of the Deputy Commissioner's asphalt court, British, Indian, and Gurkha soldiers crouched in weapon pits. On the other, Japanese troops of the 58th Infantry Regiment dug in among the flower beds of what had been a colonial garden. Grenades arced back and forth across the net line. A South East Asia Command public relations officer would later describe the fighting as "a grenade match played across the bungalow's tennis courts." The phrase captures the absurdity, but nothing about the dying was absurd.
Kohima Ridge was about a mile long and 400 yards wide, threaded by the road from Imphal to Dimapur - the lifeline connecting the besieged garrison at Imphal to the railhead that supplied the entire Burma front. In March 1944, Japan launched Operation U-Go, a large-scale invasion of India intended to cut that supply line and trigger the collapse of British power in the region. By April 6, British, Nepalese, and Indian soldiers of the Kohima garrison were surrounded on the ridge. The 1st Assam Regiment held Jail Hill to the south. The 4th Battalion, Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, defended the center. The 3rd Assam Rifles covered Hospital Spur to the northwest. And at the northeast corner, on a sharp bend in the road, stood Deputy Commissioner Charles Pawsey's bungalow, with its gardens and its tennis court - about to become the most fought-over piece of recreational real estate in military history.
The Japanese struck the northeast defenses on April 8. Two attacks hit the bungalow area, and though they suffered massive casualties, reinforcements kept coming. Allied soldiers manning a Bren gun covered the withdrawal from the bungalow to the higher ground on the far side of the tennis court. They fired until their ammunition was gone, then were overrun, bayoneted, and shot. A Company of the 4th Royal West Kents rushed in to hold the tennis court's western edge, digging weapon pits and trenches along what had been a baseline. For the next two days, the Japanese 58th Regiment attacked almost every thirty minutes. Major Tom Kenyon commanded the mixed force of British, Indian, and Gurkha defenders while artillery shells fell on their positions. Sergeant Williams repeatedly ran ammunition forward to trenches that kept running dry, earning a Military Medal for the kind of bravery that is indistinguishable from insanity in the moment.
On April 12, B Company of the Royal West Kents relieved the exhausted defenders under Major John Winstanley. That first night, Japanese soldiers attacked in silence, wearing plimsoll shoes instead of boots to muffle their approach. They nearly overran the forward positions. Lieutenant Tom Hogg survived a bayonet thrust before emptying all 25 rounds from his weapon - likely a Bren gun - into his attacker at close range. The following day brought heavy Japanese artillery and mortar fire, followed by infantry assaults that the British Ministry of Defence later described as "some of the hardest, closest and grimmest fighting, with grenades being hurled across the tennis court at point-blank range." On April 15, word reached the ridge that the British 2nd Infantry Division had broken through Japanese roadblocks on the Dimapur-Kohima road. Relief was coming, but the tennis court would not be secured for another month.
The siege was lifted on April 18 when elements of the 2nd Division, the 161st Indian Brigade, and tanks from XXXIII Corps pushed through to Garrison Hill. But the Japanese did not simply withdraw. They clung to captured positions for weeks. The 1/1st Punjab Regiment took 120 casualties fighting in and around the tennis court area. Jemadar Mohammed Rafiq earned the Military Cross leading his platoon against Japanese bunkers. The Royal Berkshire Regiment rotated companies through the position. It was not until May 10 that tanks operating from the road supported an infantry assault that finally captured the tennis court. On May 13, the 2nd Battalion of the Dorset Regiment, backed by Grant tanks firing into bunkers at near point-blank range, recaptured the Deputy Commissioner's bungalow. The lead tank was driven by Sergeant Waterhouse of the 149th Royal Armoured Corps. The soldiers who fought here - British, Indian, Nepalese, Gurkha, Japanese - bled over a space designed for a leisurely afternoon sport. Earl Mountbatten would call Kohima the turning point of the Burma Campaign. The tennis court was where that turning happened, one grenade at a time.
Located at 25.67°N, 94.10°E at Kohima, Nagaland, in the hills of northeast India. Best viewed at 5,000-8,000 feet AGL. Kohima Ridge is visible as a narrow elevated spine running alongside the Imphal-Dimapur road. The town of Kohima clusters around the ridge. The Kohima War Cemetery, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, is a prominent landmark. Nearest airport is Dimapur Airport (VEMR), approximately 74 km to the northwest.