Spidermen: Nigerian Chindits and Wingate’s Operation Thursday Burma 1943 – 1944

By John Igbino

In 1944 twenty thousand Allied Airborne Special Force troops in five Brigades commanded by Major General Orde Wingate landed behind the Japanese lines in Northern Burma. The Operation was Codenamed Operation Thursday. The Special Force troops were nicknamed ‘Chindits’. Four thousand Nigerian troops fought in the Special Force Brigades as Chindits during Operation Thursday. This book is an account of their operations behind Japanese lines between February and August 1944. The Brigade’s Insignia was the Black African Spider advancing on its prey. Thus, the Brigade called itself the ‘Spider Brigade’; its Battalions, namely the 6th, 7th and 12th Nigeria Regiments, ‘Spider Regiments’, and its troops ‘Spidermen’.

The book is a well-written account of the Spider Brigade’s battles against the 18th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. It should force Chindit Historians to confront the anomalies in Contemporary History’s treatment of Nigerian Chindits. The book is a scholarly and dispassionate excursion into the 14th Army’s Campaigns, putting under the microscope the preconceived assumptions of British and Indian Armies’ Officer Corps about the fighting quality of Nigerian Chindits. Thus, the book is an important and long overdue account of Operation Thursday that will become the standard work on Nigeria’s contributions to Allied Airborne Invasion of Burma.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546296164

John Igbino

John Igbino received PhD from the University of London. He is the author of ‘The meanings of Inclusion in Cross-Cultural Contexts’(2012), Ofsted: a case in the mismanagement of the standards of education in England (2014). He has authored numerous scholarly articles. Cover Photograph: The Insignia of the 81st West African Division/Imperial War Museum London

Book preview

SPIDERMEN

NIGERIAN CHINDITS and

WINGATE’S OPERATION

THURSDAY BURMA 1943 – 1944

JOHN IGBINO

632352.png

AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2018 John Igbino. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/30/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9617-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9618-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9616-4 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Spider Brigade and Spidermen: Nigeria

Chapter 2: The Spider Brigade and Spidermen: India and Burma

Chapter 3: Operation Thursday

Chapter 4: Aberdeen

Chapter 5: White City

Chapter 6: Sepein

Chapter 7: The Evacuation of White City

Chapter 8: Blackpool

Chapter 9: To the Banks of Lake Indawgyi

Chapter 10: Pyindaw on the way from Kamaing to Taungn and Sahmaw

Chapter 11: Hill 60

Chapter 12: Casualties Accounting

Chapter 13: Race and Prejudice on the Battlefield and Beyond

Chapter 14: The 1⁴th Army: A Multinational Brotherhood of Men?

Chapter 15: Chindit Historians and Spidermen

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Abbreviations

Photo Essay

Document Essay

Map Essay

Endnotes

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book came out of the Research Rooms at The National Archives, The Imperial War Museum, London, The National Army Museum, London, and Liddell Hart Military Archives/King’s College London Military Archives. We are greatly indebted to these Research Establishments and their staff for their help, dedication, patience and for putting their skills and expertise at our disposal. In particular we want to express our sincere thanks to Jane Rosen and Belinda Haley at The Imperial War Museum’s Research Room for their help and for pointing us in the right direction to documents and resources of whose existence we knew nothing and would otherwise have missed. We also want to thank Lianne Smith and Diana Manipud at Liddell Hart/King’s College London Military Archives for their support during our numerous visits to the Archives.

We are indebted to The National Archives for permission to reproduce the photographs of the following Documents and Maps: Brigadier Gilmore’s War Diary (TNA WO173/6626), Brigadier Gilmore’s Order of the Day 17th April 1944 (TNA WO173/6626), Lt General Sir Philip Christison’s Special Order of the Day 19th February 1945 (TNA WO176/9627), Maps: Nigeria: possible German and Vichy France Forces Amphibious Invasion Route 1941 (TNA WO173/1288), Nigeria: possible German bombardment of Lagos from the shores of Dahomey 1941 (TNA WO173/1288), Nigeria: the positions of Nigerian, Free French and Vichy Forces 1940 – 1942 (TNA WO173/1288), and Chindit Operations May – August 1944 (TNA CAB44/185).

We are indebted to The Trustees of The Imperial War Museum for the following Documents: and photographs, General Orde Wingate’s Order of the Day 11th of March 1944 and INS 4165, INS 4151, IND7046, IND 7011, SE 7937, KY 481781, K 8871, K 8853, K 7403, SE 14, IND 2237, IND 3426 and MH 7287.

We are indebted to The Trustees of Liddell Hart Military Archive for Document 5: Stockwell 5/3: Lt General Philip Christison’s Special Order of the Day 26th April 1945.

INTRODUCTION

In August 1943 the British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, ordered the formation of an Airborne Special Force Unit for operations behind the Japanese’s lines on the 24th Parallel in Burma. Following the Prime Minister’s order 20000 men in four Airborne British and Nigerian Special Force Brigades, Commanded by Major General Orde Wingate, shown in Photograph 12, were landed behind the Japanese lines in Northern Burma between February and April 1944. The Force was Codenamed ‘3rd Indian Division’ and the Operation was Codenamed ‘Operation Thursday’. The soldiers of the Brigades took the nickname ‘Chindits’. The objectives of the Brigades were to disorganise and disrupt the Japanese’s North-South Communication and Supply Lines and prevent supplies and reinforcements from reaching the Japanese’s 18th Division which was fighting Chinese-American Infantry (CAI) in the North of Burma.

The landing of the Airborne Brigades behind the Japanese’s lines began on the nights between the 5th and 6th of March 1944. By the 10th of March 1944 7000 men, equipment, guns, ammunitions, mules, and ponies had been landed¹.

The next day, the 11th of March 1944, Major General Wingate sent Order of the Day (Document 1) to the Brigadiers of the 3rd Indian Division². In the Order Major General Wingate wrote that the Japanese had been shocked by the landing of Chindit Brigades behind their lines, that the Brigades were now firmly inserted in the Japanese’s throat, that the Japanese would subsequently react violently and that the Brigades must stand firm and face the Japanese’s violence with fortitude. Additionally, Major General Wingate wrote that the Chindits must advance with determination and that they must press forward with their swords plunged into the Japanese’s sides in order to drive them out of Britain’s Burmese territories. Major General Wingate wrote that the Chindits were engaged on a ground-breaking action in which each and every one of the participants should take pride now and in the future.

Major General Wingate’s Order must have been uplifting for the troops who were going into battle against the Japanese. But the issues for Historians of Operation Thursday – and they are issues which will reverberate throughout this book – lay in the terms ‘every man’ and ‘proud’ in Major General Wingate’s Order. The questions the issues raise for Historians are as follows: does the term ‘every man’ as it was used by Major General Wingate include Nigerian Chindits of the Spider Brigade? If Nigerian Chindits were alive in the 21st Century would they have the right to be proud and say that they, too, were there when the History of the Chindits was being made? And if Nigerian Chindits are not alive today could Nigerians argue on their behalf that they, too, deserve the right to lay claims to a fair share of the History of Operation Thursday?

From our standpoint on the History of Operation Thursday these are important questions. Firstly, their importance derives from the thoughts which underpinned Major General Wingate’s Order. Major General Wingate was firmly conscious of the fact that he and Chindits Brigades were making History and he had worded the final statements of his Order such that they were not simply addressed to the men of the 3rd Indian Division on the Battlefield, but also they were addressed to posterity. Major General Wingate was thinking ahead of his time because in the wording of the final statement of his Order he aimed to impress on posterity that the History which he and ‘every man’ in the Chindits’ Brigades were making was an inclusive history and that the History he had in mind when he wrote his Order did not and should not draw any distinction between the black, white, brown, and yellow soldiers of the 14th Army³. Additionally, given the intentions and meanings of the congratulatory messages sent by Admiral Lord Mountbatten⁴ and Lt General Sir Philip Christison⁵ the histories of Burma Campaigns which Major General Wingate envisaged in the wording of his Order are not the ones which have been written by Contemporary Chindit Historians. And we will be examining some of these histories in this book. Secondly, the importance of the above questions would come into focus more clearly in chapter 13 not only through discussions of some of the contributions in human, financial and physical resources which were made to Britain’s and its Allies’ WWII efforts by Nigeria⁶, but also in chapter 12 the importance of the questions would come into focus in the discussion of Nigerian Chindits’ casualties and how, where and when those casualties were sustained.

Now, it is not only Historians of Operation Thursday who forgot that the so-called backward and primitive Nigerians soldiers⁷ of the Spider Brigade were Chindits. Instead there is, in Britain, a collective intentional amnesia about Nigeria’s human, military, material and financial resource contributions to Britain and Britain’s wars throughout the ages, from the Ashanti Wars through the First and Second World Wars to Post-War reconstruction of Britain⁸. The amnesia has ensured that the myth that Britain stood alone against Germany until the United States of America entered the war following the Japanese’s attacks on Pearl Harbour in 1942 is perpetuated. But at no time did Britain stand alone because by October 1939 Nigeria’s human, financial and physical resources were already being mobilised for war in support of Britain. In June 1940 when France fell to Germany the mobilisation of Nigeria’s resources accelerated. Thus, by September 1940 Nigeria’s payment for the support of the British Army stood at £400000 per annum and by 1941 Nigeria Regiments were fighting the Italian Army in Abyssinia. We will discuss the mobilisation of Nigeria’s resources for war in chapter 2.

British Chindits of all ranks were no exception because they, too, were infected by intentional amnesia because when they returned to Britain they quickly forgot their Nigerian comrades in arms⁹. Thus, in a message which was read by Chindits Old Comrades during the Dedication of the Colours at Liverpool Cathedral on the 14thof March 1948 the author of the message listed the countries of origins of the Chindits during Operation Thursday. The message mentioned that the Chindits included British, Americans, Australians, Canadians, Chinese, Gurkhas, Kachins, Karens, and Burmans. The message even remembered to mention the Indian elements which guarded the Chindit’s Air Base at Hailikandi, but it forgot Nigerian Chindits who actually fought and defeated Japanese units on the Battlefield¹⁰.

The message and its covering letter were anonymous. But the texts of the message and its covering letter suggest that both were authored by Brigadier Dereck Tulloch (later Major General) because, on the one hand, the anonymous author identified himself as Major General Wingate’s Chief of Staff and, on the other hand, he identified himself as the Second in Command of the Long-Range Penetration Force following the death of Major General Wingate. Therefore, the author of the message and letter could be nobody else other than Brigadier Tulloch who was the Brigadier General Staff (BGS) at the HQ of the 3rd Indian Division during Operation Thursday. Thus, a mere three years after the end of Operation Thursday Brigadier Tulloch remembered the local Guides and Levies, the Kachins and Karens, and the Burmese Rifles (Burrifs), Local Liaison and Interpreters, but he had no memory of Nigerian Chindits of the 6th, 7th and 12th Battalions Nigeria Regiments. Brigadier Tulloch even included Americans, Australians, and Canadians in his list of the countries from which the troops of Chindits Brigades were drawn, even though no American, Australian and Canadian Brigades fought within the ranks of the 3rd Indian Division, at least not as Ground Forces during Operation Thursday. Thus, irrespective of Trooper Aylen’s optimism that in the heat of battle British Chindits came to accept and regard Nigerian Chindits as their comrades in arms¹¹. But when the war had been fought and won his Old Comrades who gathered at Liverpool Cathedral in order to Troop their Regimental Colours and celebrate in the warm glow of victory forgot the Black African Spider Insignia of the 6th, 7th and 12th Battalions Nigeria Regiments shown in the book’s cover and in Photograph 1. Major General Wingate did not live to see the outcome of his plans and efforts. Had he lived would he, too, have subscribed to Brigadier Tulloch’s forgetfulness? How would he have addressed the question: why have Nigerian Chindits been anonymised, omitted, forgotten, and relegated to the margins of the History he helped to make?

As we have mentioned above one of the principal arguments of this book is that Nigerian Chindits have been deliberately anonymised, forgotten, omitted, and relegated to the margins of the History of Operation Thursday, even though they ranked ahead of British Chindits of the 14th, 16th and 23rd Brigades according to the number of enemy troops killed in battle and that they killed 22 enemy troops for the loss of a Nigerian soldier compared to Chindits of the 77th Brigade which killed 5 enemy troops for the loss a British soldier. Therefore, at this stage of the proceedings we want to examine some of the attempts which have been made by some Historians to explain the issues underlying the anonymisation, forgetting, omission and relegation of Nigerian Chindits to the margins of the History of Operation Thursday.

Three explanations have been attempted. The first explanation claimed that Nigerian Chindits have been forgotten because they did not fight the Japanese as whole Brigade; instead they fought under the Command of British and Indian Infantry Brigades. The second explanation claimed that Nigerian Chindits have been forgotten because they were Garrison Battalions and that garrison duties were not considered to be crucial to the achievement of the aims of Operation Thursday. The third explanation, which is a more general explanation and is applicable to the entire or individual units of the 81st and 82nd West African Divisions, claimed that West African troops have been forgotten because they were illiterates and that they did not leave written documents from which Historians could have reconstructed the histories of their activities. Thus, the first two explanations derived their rationale from Battlefield exigencies. The third explanation derived its rationale from Western scholarship’s preference for textualism.

The remainder of this section will be devoted to the discussion of the above explanations. The next sections will be devoted, firstly, to the discussion of the book’s arguments. Secondly, the sections will discuss how we came to research and write this book. Thirdly, the sections will discuss our method including, the classification of our documentary sources and a brief discussion of some literary criticisms of Content Analyses.

Nigerian Chindits did not fight as whole Brigade

One of the leading explanations of the reasons why Nigerian Chindits have been anonymised, forgotten, omitted, and relegated to the margins of the History of Operation Thursday was provided by Lt Col J.E.B. Barton, the Official Narrator of Operation Thursday, and the Historical Section of the Cabinet Office. The Official Narrator’s explanations represent the British Government’s position and the explanations are in Volumes 183 – 185 of the Official Narrator’s History of Operation Thursday. Central to Lt Col Barton’s and his colleagues’ explanations is the argument that Nigerian Chindits were forgotten by Historians and Chroniclers of Operation Thursday because they did not fight as a Brigade Unit; instead Nigeria Regiments served under the Command of the other Brigades of the 3rd Indian Division. Now, for an Official Narrator whose responsibility it was to explain the omission of Nigerian Chindits from the History of Operation Thursday Lt Col Barton’s Volumes gave very meagre descriptions of the battle engagements and achievements of Nigerian Chindits. Nevertheless, in Part V of Volume 185, Lt Col Barton’s, and the Cabinet Office Historians’ descriptions of the operations of the 3rd Indian Division during Operation Thursday conceded that Historians and Chroniclers have been unjust to Nigerian Chindits because they have not been accorded recognition for their achievements¹².

In Part V, Volume 185, Lt Col Barton and his colleagues described the two Phases of Operation Thursday. According to them the first Phase of Operation Thursday was the Harassment of Japanese Communications and Supply Lines. During the Harassment Phase Chindits blocked the Japanese’s North-South Communications and Supply Lines and prevented the supply and reinforcement of the Japanese 18th Division between March and May 1944. The second Phase of Operation Thursday involved operations which Chindit Brigades conducted in Direct Support of Chinese-American Infantry (CAI)¹³. Although the Spider Brigade was involved in both phases and that two of the Brigade’s Battalions, namely the 7th and 12th Battalions Nigeria Regiments and a Platoon of the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment were fully involved in enforcing the harassment and blockage of the Japanese’s North-South Communications and Supply Lines in White City at the Burmese Village of Henu, the Brigade earned no more than three pages including an Appendix in the Official History of Operation Thursday.

Thus, the question is why, as the Official Historians of Operation Thursday, did Lt Col Barton and the Cabinet Office Historians not set about putting right the injustice which they acknowledged Historians and Chroniclers have done and, indeed, were still doing? In the circumstance, we thought that in order to put right the injustice Lt Col Barton and the Cabinet Office Historians should have written the History of Operation Thursday in which due recognition was given to Nigeria and Nigerian Chindits in accordance with Major General Wingate’s Order of the Day that ‘every man’ who took part in Operation Thursday should be ‘Proud’ that they were part of Chindits’ History. But instead of writing the History of Operation Thursday in which Nigerian Chindits were accorded their rightful position within the meanings of Major General Wingate’s Order of the Day Lt Col Barton and the Cabinet Office Historians explained the origins of the injustice they have identified by arguing that Nigerian Chindits were omitted from the History of Operation Thursday was because Nigeria Regiments of the Spider Brigade did not fight as a whole Brigade¹⁴.

Thus, having argued that Historians of Operation Thursday were unjust in their treatment of Nigerian Chindits we thought that the Official Narrator should have elucidated the nature of the injustice, its origins and the factors which have continued to feed that injustice and then proceed to use his knowledge as the Official Historian to excise the effects of the injustice from the History of Operation Thursday. But Lt Col Barton and his colleagues did not do any of these things. Instead they explained the injustice by attributing it to the problems flowing from the exigencies of Battlefield Command. In other words, Lt Col Barton and his colleagues were arguing, firstly, that because the deployment of Nigeria Regiments prevented the Spider Brigade from fighting as a whole unit it means that Historians could be rightly excused for omitting Nigerian Chindits from the History of Operation Thursday. Secondly, they were arguing that because the Brigade’s Regiment did not operate as a unit it would be impossible for Historians to determine where and when Nigerian Chindits fought and therefore Historians could safely omit them from History.

In the latter instance Lt Col Barton and his colleagues echoed the confusion surrounding the allocation of Nigeria Regiments to British and Indian infantry Brigades. The confusion would be examined at length in chapter 8. And as would be argued in that chapter the confusion has enabled Historians to omit the combat activities of Nigerian Regiments on the ground that it has been impossible to ascertain under which British or Indian Brigades Nigerian Chindits fought. Additionally, that it has been impossible to ascertain when, where and who Nigerian Chindits fought. Thus, by arguing that the Spider Brigade did not fight as a unit Lt Col Barton and his colleagues were defending Historians of Operation Thursday because they were in effect saying that Historians were not to be blamed for suppressing history since it is not entirely clear to them when, where and with and against whom Nigerian Chindits fought. But as we have mentioned above the fact that the Brigade did not fight as a unit during the early phases of Operation Thursday did not prevent the Brigade from becoming one of the most prolific and efficient killers of Japanese Infantry.

Although, Lt Col Barton and his colleagues did not omit the fact that the 7th Nigeria Regiment and the 12th Nigeria Regiment were Battalions of the Spider Brigade they omitted the fact that these Regiments fought together under the Command of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade and that the Regiments fought as a unit in the battles of White City, with the 12th Battalion and the Platoon of the 6th Battalion fighting from inside White City while the 7th Battalion was fighting from outside White City as a ‘Floater’ Battalion. The Japanese’s attacks on White City, the dogged defence of the Village of Henu on the Southeastern Sector of White City by the 12th Battalion Nigeria Regiment and the Platoon of the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment and the destruction of a Japanese Convoy in an ambush by the 7th Battalion Nigeria Regiment will be described in chapters 5 and 6.

Lt Col Barton and his colleagues described the combat activities of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers and the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment at length. These Regiments were also Battalions of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade and were Garrison Battalions during the battle of White City. They did not fight alongside the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade at Sepein. Instead, during the battles of White City and Sepein these Regiments fought under Brigadier Gilmore, Commander of the Spider Brigade. Similarly, the 45th Reconnaissance Regiment was a Regiment of the 16th Infantry Brigade and it, too, fought under the Command of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade after the evacuation of the 16th Brigade from Aberdeen in April 1944, but Lt Col Barton and his colleagues described the activities of the 45th Reconnaissance Regiment in detail. Additionally, Lt Col Barton and the Cabinet Office Historians acknowledged that the Spider Brigade subsequently regrouped at Pahok following the evacuation of White City and Aberdeen, but still, they did not have much to say about the Brigade’s subsequent combat activities at MLA, Pyindaw, Hill 60, Taungn and Sahmaw after the Brigade had regrouped at Pahok. The Brigade’s march to the shores of Lake Indawgyi and subsequent regroup at Pahok will be described in chapter 9; the Brigade’s combat activities at MLA and Pyindaw will be described in chapter 10, and the Brigade’s battles to clear the Japanese from Hill 60, Taungn and Sahmaw will be described in chapter 11.

Thus, the Official Narrators were not quite thorough in their analyses because as Historians who were officially recognised and authorised by the state to recount and document past events on its behalf in order to inform the present and the future about those events they had both ethical and official responsibilities to search for and unearth evidence that would have enabled them to disentangle misunderstandings and omissions within the events they were placing before their readers. Lt Col Barton was a soldier and an Officer. He would have known that Divisions, Brigades, Battalions, Companies, Platoons and Sections do not fight in isolation on the Battlefield. More importantly, he would have known that units do not always fight on the Battlefield in accordance with their HQ’s Order of Battle and he would have known that as events unfold on the Battlefield units do fight under the Command of Divisions, Brigades, Battalions and Companies other than their parent Divisions, Brigades, Battalions and Companies. Yet no Contemporary Chindit Historians have omitted British Chindit units, namely, the 23rd Brigade, the 2nd Leicester and the 45thReconnaissance Regiments simply because they fought under the Command of Corps, Divisions or Brigades which were not their parent Corps, Divisions or Brigades.

Irrespective of the foregoing inadequacies, Lt Col Barton and his colleagues were, nevertheless, accorded Official Seal of Approval by the British Government. The Official Seal of Approval means that the British Government has stated, in perpetuity, that Lt Col Barton was the Official Historian of Operation Thursday and that his version of the History of Operation Thursday is the only accurate descriptions of the Operations of the Special Force in Burma between February and August 1944. And to reinforce that position the Volumes were listed as the British Cabinet’s Official Historical Publication, namely, the ‘Blue Book’¹⁵.

Lt Col Barton and the Cabinet Office Historians had numerous opportunities, in more than a thousand pages and three massive volumes of closely typed manuscripts, to have righted the injustice they have identified in the historiography of Operation Thursday. The simplest way they could have addressed the injustice would have been to adopt the methodologies they adopted in their descriptions of British and Indian Infantry Brigades. Because in their descriptions of the British and Indian Infantry Brigades Lt Col Barton and his colleagues expended considerable efforts and space, describing, in meticulous and minute details, the histories of the Regiments of the 14th, 16th, 23rd, 77th and 111th British and Indian Infantry Brigades. Thus, if they had wanted to be consistent in their method there were abundant War Office (WO) Documents, particularly the Documents of Nigeria’s Area Command containing the History of the Spider Brigade from its concentration in Zaria in 1941 to its departure for India and thence Burma in 1943¹⁶. The Brigade’s History from its formation in 1941 with its HQs in Zaria will be described in chapter 1. The Brigade’s standing order, preparations and mobilisation for war in the event of attacks by the Axis following the fall of France and Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia will be described in chapter 2. And the Brigade’s embarkation for Indian, its arrival in Indian and its reorganisation into Chindit Columns and subsequent landing in Northern Burma will be described in chapter 3.

The Official History of Operation Thursday was written in the 1950s. Accordingly, had Lt Col Barton and his colleagues addressed the omissions and injustice in the History of Operation Thursday they would have laid firm foundations for future Historians. Although much of War Office Documents were still classified when they were writing they would have had unrestricted access to classified State Documents. Additionally, they had access to the report and comments written by Brigadier Ricketts¹⁷. But Brigadier Ricketts’ reports and comments did not find their way to the main narratives; instead only fragments of the report made it to the appendices. Similarly, Brigadier Ricketts’ predecessor, Brigadier Gilmore, wrote a detailed report in which he described the defence of White City against the Japanese’s Infantry attacks between 11th and 17th of April 1944¹⁸. Brigadier Gilmore’s report was available among the Papers of the HQ of the 3rd Indian Division¹⁹. Brigadier Calvert wrote a detailed report of the Operations of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade in which he described some of the successful Operations carried out by the 7th Battalion Nigeria Regiment²⁰. Again, Lt Co Barton and his colleagues ignored Brigadier Calvert’s and Brigadier Gilmore’s reports.

More importantly, The Supreme Allied HQ Military Communiques and Press Briefings describe in considerable detail the Japanese attacks on White City and the combat roles of Nigeria Regiments in the battle of White City²¹. But none of the participants’-eyewitnesses’ accounts of Japanese attacks, including infantry assaults, artillery bombardments and air raids which were highlighted in the Supreme Allied Commander’s Military Communiques and in the 14th Army Observer’s Report²² on the combat activities of Nigerian Chindits during the Japanese’s attacks on White City made their way into the Official Narratives.

Although Lt Col Barton and the Cabinet Office Historians ignored the report in which Brigadier Gilmore described the 12th Battalion Nigeria Regiment’s defence of Henu Perimeter, they gave prominence to the activities of the Column of 1st Lancashire Fusiliers and the 1st South Staffordshires Regiment during those crucial days of the Japanese’s offensive against White City between the 11th of April and 17th of April 1944²³. Even the counterattacks by two Platoons of Col Pat Hugh’s 43rd Column which subsequently retook OP Hill²⁴ and in which one of the Platoons went through the shattered Perimeter wire, outflanked the Japanese, killed thirty-two of them²⁵, decapitated them and brought their heads back into the wire as trophies did not make the main texts of the Official History.

On these grounds the Lt Col Barton’s and his colleague’s explanations of the reasons Nigerian Chindits have been anonymised and omitted from the History of Operation Thursday must fail. The explanations must fail because they did not do equivalent injustice to British and Indian Armies Units which did not fight as whole units as they did to the Spider Brigade. Lt Col Barton and his colleagues at the Cabinet Office were not very diligent in their selection and use of evidence because in addition to the primary sources on files at the War Office and at the Cabinet Office which would have been made available to them by the then Public Records Office (PRO) there were numerous other primary sources available elsewhere, particularly The Imperial War Museum London²⁶ and Liddell Hart Military Archives and Kings College London Military Archives²⁷.

Nigerian Chindits were Garrison troops

The second explanation of the reasons Historians have anonymised, forgotten and relegated Nigerian Chindits to the margins of the History of Operation Thursday was provided by Lt Hamilton. In his quite interesting History of the 81st West African Division’s Campaigns in Burma Lt Hamilton offered some answers and explanations as to why he thought the achievements of West Africans soldiers who served in South East Asia during the Second World War were not accorded the recognition they deserved. He proposed that the principal reason why the achievements of Nigerian Chindits, particularly the achievements of the 6th and 12th Battalions Nigeria Regiments, have often been diminished, unrecognised and subsequently forgotten altogether was because the 6th and 12th Battalions Nigeria Regiments were Garrison Battalions and as such their combat activities as Garrison Battalions were not highly valued when compared to the combat activities of ‘Floater Battalions²⁸. In other words, Lt Hamilton was advancing the proposition that Chindit Historians have forgotten the combat achievements of the 6th and 12th Battalions Nigeria Regiments because the combat activities of Garrison Battalions were irrelevant and because they contributed nothing to the achievements of the objectives of Operation Thursday.

Lieutenant Hamilton’s proposition is interesting, but there are many challenging problems facing the underlying arguments. The first challenge is that the 7th Battalion Nigeria Regiment was never a Garrison Battalion; instead the Regiment was a ‘Floater’ Battalion. Yet, as would be shown in chapter 6 irrespective of that Battalion’s battle successes at Mwalu²⁹, Ywathit³⁰ and Kyusanlai Pass³¹ and its destruction of an entire Japanese Convoy as evidenced in numerous War Official Documents³² its successes are either glossed over as mere military accidents in the Grand History of Operation Thursday or are relegated to the inconsequential or are comfortably forgotten. The Battalion’s achievements were not even recorded and recognised in the annals of the 3rd Indian Division as should have been done as a matter of Official Record³³.

During the march to Lake Indawgyi following the evacuation of Aberdeen and White City the 6th and 12th Battalions Nigeria Regiments fought some major and successful battles at MLA 1, MLA 2 and Pyindaw, albeit part of the battle of Pyindaw was between friendly troops, namely, Chinese and Nigerian troops³⁴. In those battles, which would be described in chapters 9 and 10 the 12th Battalion fought the Japanese for MLA 2 from the 9th of July 1944 until the 11th of July 1944 when they eventually seized MLA 2³⁵. Sergeant Waters wrote in the War Diary of the 12th Battalion that the Battalion fought for two days and that during those two days the Battalion was engaged in non-stop firefight before it drove the Japanese from their positions. It is clear from Sergeant Waters’ entries that the 12th Nigeria Regiment fought a hard battle in order to drive the Japanese out of their fortified defensive positions and seize MLA 2 from them. The battle for MLA 2 was a hard battle because Nigeria lost nine men, killed, and the same number wounded on the 10th of July 1944 before they eventually broke the Japanese’s resistance and drove them out of MLA 2³⁶.

During the battle Nigerians took Japanese prisoners³⁷. But these battle successes, particularly the fact that Japanese soldiers were taken prisoners have been completely ignored by Chindit Historians. Thus, although Lt Hamilton wrote about MLA and the capture of a Japanese prisoner he did not give the battles of MLA the thoughts they rightly deserved; instead he merely wrote that Nigerians entered Pyindaw and took positions on the hills of Mogaung. But the problem remains because to get to the hills of Mogaung and take positions on them the 6th and 12th Battalions had, first of all, to fight to clear MLA of Japanese forces before they could arrive at the point where they could then take position on Mogaung hills. But Lt Hamilton was not accurate in this instance because Nigeria Regiments did not take positions on the Hills of Mogaung; instead it was the 14th Brigade which was not involved in the fight for MLA and Pyindaw which took position on the higher grounds, while the Spider Brigade had to continue the advance on the waterlogged floor of Mogaung Valley in support of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade which was fighting to take Mogaung³⁸.

The second challenge to Lt Hamilton’s proposition is that the 2nd Black Watch Regiment, 3/6 Gurkha Rifles, 3/9 Gurkha Rifles, 4/9 Gurkha Rifles, the King’s Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), The Cameronians, King’s Own Royal Regiment (Liverpool), 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, The Leicestershire Regiment, 45th Reconnaissance Regiment and the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment were all at one time or another Garrison Battalions because their Columns were either at Broadway, or Aberdeen, or Blackpool or White City. Indeed, during the earlier Phases of Operation Thursday the entire Chindit Columns were at one time or another Garrison Columns. And no Chindit Historian has written anything which would lead to the conclusion that the contributions made by the above Regiments to the success or failure in the achievement of the objectives of Operation Thursday were anything other than heroic. The battles in which these Regiments fought against were eulogised such that the histories of these British Regiments and Gurkha Regiments became synonymous with heroism in the annals of the Chindits, even when there was nothing heroic in some of the battles in which some of the Regiments have fought. Thus, battles such as the failure of the 16th Brigade to take Indaw; the failures of the 3/6 Gurkha Rifles’ and 45th Reconnaissance Regiment’s attacks on the Japanese positions on the outskirts of Sepein and the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment’s loss of OP Hill have never been forgotten. Instead, these Battlefield setbacks have been remembered and written up as epic struggles against fanatical Imperial Japanese Army.

In contrast to the eminent position given to the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment during the battle of OP Hill the counterattacks in which Platoons of the 12th Battalion Nigeria Regiment recaptured Op Hill and were documented in The Supreme Allied Commander’s Military Communiques³⁹ and in the Report of the 14th Army Observer⁴⁰ are glossed over, because the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment supposedly held, grimly, on to OP Hill until no more than eight of the men of the 1st South Staffordshire Platoon on the Hill were left standing. The 1st South Staffordshire Regiment supposedly stood firm to enable the 12th Battalion Nigeria Regiment to counterattack⁴¹. Now, the objections we have raised here and elsewhere in this book are not to diminish the gallantry of British Chindits, particularly the gallantry of Lt Scholey and his Platoon on Op Hill. But if, indeed, the Platoon of the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment did hold on grimly to OP Hill and that eight of the men were still standing and fighting on the Hill, the Japanese could not be said to have taken OP Hill as The Supreme Allied Command Military Communique has stated. And the Nigerian Platoons which counterattacked the Japanese on the summit of OP Hill would not have had to fight hand to hand battles⁴², including the use of a box of grenades as a weapon⁴³, on the summit of the Hill in order to eject the Japanese from it.

But there are alternative and more credible descriptions of the battle of OP Hill written by participants-eyewitnesses⁴⁴, including the Commander of White City, Brigadier Gilmore⁴⁵. Yet, despite its numerous inaccuracies and suppression of evidence Brigadier Bidwell’s description of the battle of Op Hill remains, to this day, the most influential historical descriptions of Operation Thursday. His work effectively set the patterns for the descriptions of the battles of White City for Chindit Historians. Even participants’-eyewitnesses’ accounts and Official Documents rank below Brigadier Bidwell’s descriptions. And no Historian of Operation Thursday would be considered with any measure of seriousness unless they recount Brigadier Bidwell descriptions. Brigadier Bidwell wrote uncritically of British Regiments. He wrote glowingly of the grittiness of the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment. At the same time, he relegated the counterattacks and the recapture of OP Hill and the outflanking and destruction of the Japanese forward positions outside the Perimeter wire by Platoons 43rd Column of the 12th Nigeria Regiment to mere detail which occurred after the battle of Op Hill had been fought and won through the courageous stand of the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment. The battle of OP Hill will be described in chapter 5.

The third and the most serious challenge to Lt Hamilton’s proposition is the fact that it did not give enough consideration to the centrality of the principles, objectives and the roles which Major General Wingate assigned to Chindit’s Strongholds in the success or failure of Operation Thursday, particularly in the achievement of the 14th Army’s Operational Instruction Number 4. Chindit’s Strongholds were conceived and designed to act as baits which were dangled before Japanese in order to lure them from their fortified positions. The Battalions which garrisoned the Strongholds were meant to be sitting targets. They were there to entice the Japanese to attack the Strongholds so that they could be destroyed by both the ‘Floater’ Battalions fighting from outside the Strongholds and the Garrison Battalion fighting from inside the Strongholds.

The principles of construction, defence and the general objectives and the roles of Strongholds in Chindit Operations were set out in meticulous detail in Major General Wingate’s Training Documents⁴⁶. In Major General Wingate’s conception of Chindits’ Strongholds the ‘Floaters’ were the Hammers and the Garrison Battalions were the Anvils. Accordingly, it is not sound, in terms of writing impartial History of Operation Thursday, that Historians should eulogise and remember the Hammers, militarily, while the Anvils are forgotten, militarily. Because irrespective how militarily competent, strong and how gallantly the Hammers fought they would be unable to fight the enemy and hence achieve battle successes without an equally militarily competent, strong and gallant Anvils against whom the enemy would be hammered. The Garrison Battalions not only had to be equally strong as the ‘Floater’ Battalions, but also they had to be able to demonstrate more resistance to enemy attacks than the ‘Floater’ Battalions. Because, firstly, they must demonstrate that they are able to withstand artillery barrages and air raids. Secondly, they must demonstrate that they are able to stand and fight and repel infantry attacks in order to defend the Strongholds and they must continuously demonstrate that resistance to concerted artillery and infantry attacks before help arrives.

The 12th Battalion and the Platoon of the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment stood and fought the Japanese at Henu and this fact was mentioned on numerous occasions in the Military Communiques issued by The Supreme Allied Commander and in the Report of the 14th Army Observer⁴⁷. The Military Communiques and the 14th Army Observer’s Report were issued by the Public Relations Department at Lord Mountbatten’s HQ under the Command of Air Marshal Sir Philip Joubert de La Ferte, the Chief of Information and Civil Affairs (CICA)⁴⁸. Thus, it is implausible that Lord Mountbatten’s HQ would have issued Military Communiques citing the successful defence of White City by Nigeria Regiment if the opposite had been the case.

Garrison Battalions were always at a disadvantage because while ‘Floater’ Columns were able to disengage from their attacks on Japanese positions and disappear into the jungle the 12th Battalion was never able to disengage from Japanese air, artillery and infantry attacks on White City in precisely the same way the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment was unable to disengage from air raids by Japanese Mitsubishis on Aberdeen. Air Marshal Joubert de La Ferte made it clear enough in his Communiques that the Japanese attacks on White City were relentless. And the problems which faced Garrison Battalions are sufficiently exemplified by the 111th Indian Infantry Brigade’s lonely battles against overwhelming Japanese attacks on Blackpool because the ‘Floater’ Columns were delayed by unforeseen circumstances and hence did not arrive on time or at all. In those circumstances until the arrival of the ‘Floater’ Columns the Garrison Battalions must stand alone and fight to the death or withdraw and cede the Stronghold to the Japanese as the 111th Brigade was subsequently forced to do on the 25th of May 1944. The roles of the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment in the extraction of the remnants of the 111th Indian Infantry Brigade to the West of the Irrawaddy following the retreat from Blackpool and the arguments surrounding why Major Masters did not ask the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment for help sooner than later would be discussed in chapter 8.

The fourth challenge to Lt Hamilton’s proposition is because he did not pay attention to the fact that Chindits’ Strongholds were meant to be impregnable fortresses. The Strongholds were meant to function not only as a Block on the Japanese’s communications and supply systems, but also they were meant to be safe havens, boltholes and jungle storage space for Chindits. The centrality of Strongholds as impregnable fortresses is highlighted by reference to the tasks which faced the 3rd Indian Division in Burma as they were set out in Operational Instruction Orders No. 4 on the 4th of February 1944 by the 14th Army⁴⁹. The Strongholds were the principal methods designed by Major General Wingate to draw the Japanese away from Ledo Sector by using White City both as a Block and as bait.

Major General Wingate set very high stakes on Strongholds, in terms of their centrality to Operation Thursday. He reinforced the centrality of Strongholds in the overall strategies of the operation in two of his famous Training Essays, namely, Training Note Number 8⁵⁰ and Training Notes by Major General Wingate⁵¹. At the head of Training Note Number 8 Major General Wingate emphasised the centrality of Strongholds to Operation Thursday in Biblical proportions, quoting Zechariah 9: 12, ‘Turn ye to the stronghold, Ye Prisoners of Hope⁵².

More importantly, Major General Wingate made it quite clear that Strongholds were never to be abandoned to the Japanese and that their Garrison Battalions must stand and fight to death. ‘No Surrender of Strongholds’ was Major General Wingate’s Order. Thus, in Major General Wingate’s Order and Biblical Verse lay the explanations for the dogged defence of Henu by the 12th Battalion Nigeria Regiment and the Platoon of the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment⁵³. And had the Japanese decided to use ground forces to attack Aberdeen rather than air force there would have been no doubt that the 6th Battalion Nigeria Regiment would also have defended Aberdeen to death⁵⁴.

When Major General Wingate initially informed Nigerians that they were to Garrison the Strongholds he stressed the importance of the role of Garrison Battalions as the defenders of Chindit refuges. Thus, during the meeting with General Slim on the 29th of January 1944 General Slim confirmed to Major General Wingate that he could have the whole of the Spider Brigade instead of the two of the Brigade’s Battalions which he had initially assigned to Special Force. Following that meeting Major General Wingate subsequently wrote to the Brigadiers of the 3rd Indian Division to inform them of the outcomes of his meeting with General Slim. Major General Wingate informed the Brigadiers that General Slim has decided to assign the entire 3rd Spider Brigade to the 3rd Indian Division for garrison duties on the Battlefield. Major General Wingate wrote that the fact that the Brigade’s Regiments were going to garrison the Strongholds does not mean that their responsibilities as Special Force Regiments have been altered; instead that current operational requirements demand that they should hold the Strongholds and that as operational circumstances evolved they would emerge from the Strongholds and carry out Special Force operations. Major General Wingate concluded by arguing that the Brigadiers should impress on the 3rd Spider Brigade that it was an honour to be assigned to Special Force and that instead of remaining inactive until July 1944 they were being honoured because of the good impression they made on the Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral Lord Mountbatten, when he visited them on their concentration and training grounds⁵⁵.

We will disregard Major General Wingate’s condescension and the underlying argument that he was being generous to the entire population of Officers and men of the 3rd Spider Brigade by agreeing to deploy them as Garrison Battalions when, in fact, the Brigade had been specifically prepared as an all-terrain and all-weather Mobile Infantry Brigade and was readied for jungle warfare in the Arakan and in operational roles similar to LRPF Guerrilla Operations even while the Brigade was still in Nigeria⁵⁶. Thus, given the centrality of Strongholds to Operation Thursday there are factors other than the fact that in the early phase of Operation Thursday Nigerian troops performed garrison duties which have underpinned their exclusion from the History of Operation Thursday. And Major General Wingate’s reference to the Brigade remaining inactive until July 1944 was also a well-known fact at the HQs of the 14th Army because the original plan of the 14th Army was that the 3rd, 14th and 23rd Infantry Brigades would form a Divisional HQ under the Command of Major General George Symes⁵⁷. The plan was that Major General Symes’ Divisional HQ would subsequently fly into Northern Burma to relieve the 16th, 77th and 111th Brigades in July 1944. But the planned Divisional HQ had to be shelved because the 23rd Brigade was no longer available for Special Force duties because it was put into the 14th Army Reserve. The change to the status of the 23rd Brigade meant that the 3rd and 14th Brigades were flown into Burma earlier than had been planned.

Thus, it is not because the Regiments of the Spider Brigade were Garrison Battalions that they were anonymised, forgotten and relegated to the margins of the History of Operation Thursday; instead in order to answer the questions that were posed at the beginning of this introduction we must have to look at the Politics of Race prior to, during and beyond Operation Thursday for explanations. And because Strongholds were Chindits’ strong points it implausible that Nigerian Chindits would have been anonymised, forgotten, relegated and, indeed, omitted completely from the History of Operation Thursday because they defended Chindits’ strong points. We discuss Prejudice and Race on the Battlefield in chapter 13. And in chapter 14 we pose and address the question: did Nigerian Chindits do their duty on the Battlefield?

Nigerian Chindits left no written accounts

The third explanation of the reasons West Africans have been omitted from the History of the War in Burma has claimed that West Africans were illiterates and because they could neither read nor write they did not leave written Personal Biographies, Diaries or written Recollections from which Historians could have retold the History of their Campaigns in Burma⁵⁸.

The claim that West Africans did not leave written accounts is a generalised explanation which has been applied to the entire West African Divisions which fought in Burma. The argument owes much of its underpinning thoughts to Concessionary Historical Method. But on this occasion, however, the omission and relegation of Nigerian Chindits to the margins of the History of Operation Thursday were not only explained on the grounds of illiteracy. But also, the consequences of the omission and relegation for the accuracy of the History of Operation Thursday were tempered and legitimised by appeals to the potentially daunting difficulties Historians would have had to face were they to try to reconstruct and conduct detailed analyses and descriptions of the activities of Nigerian Chindits since they did not leave written experiential accounts of their activities in Museums and Archives in the UK. Thus, explanations of the omission and relegation of the combat activities of Nigerian Chindits on the basis of illiteracy helped to legitimise the preferred version of the History of Operation Thursday. Because the absence of privately written evidence, as it were, does not mean that there are no officially documented evidence. Instead explanations based on the absence of privately written evidence demonstrates a preference for specific sources of historical evidence in which evidence derived from Personal Biographies, Diaries and Experiential Accounts which were written many years after the events they have described were given substance over accounts of the same events in Official Documents which were written as the events unfolded. Thus, at the heart of the argument of illiteracy is a preference for evidence derived from and based on Personal Biographies, Diaries and Recollections over evidence based on and derived from Cabinet and War Offices’ Documents. In other words, explanation based, as it were, on literacy versus illiteracy demonstrated a preference for textualism over oralism⁵⁹.

The argument that specific units of the 14th Army were omitted from the History of the campaigns in Burma because they did not leave privately written documents was advanced by Major General Julian Thompson in collaboration with The Imperial War Museum⁶⁰. Major General Thompson’s and The Imperial War Museum’s argument have helped to obscure the actual reasons why Nigerian Chindits have been omitted and relegated to the margins of the History of Operation Thursday. Because much of the History of Operation Thursday have not been written on the basis of the Personal Biographies, Diaries, and written Recollections of individual Chindits. Some Chindits died on the Battlefield, some survived and later wrote their Biographies and yet others gave Oral Recollections to The Imperial War Museum. But the majority of Chindits did not write or left Oral Recollections in museums. Crucially, much of the Biographies and Recollections are individual experiences and are limited in scope. Many soldiers did not keep notes and diaries. Thus, if they subsequently wrote their Biographies their accounts would have been written some considerable time later and time lapses do erode human memories of events which happened in the distant pasts⁶¹. This is not to argue that Personal Biographies and Recollections are not important additions to extant Official Documents as sources of evidence for the History of Operation Thursday, but they should not become the dominant sources of evidence. Nor should they displace or replace Official Battlefield Documents which were written, in contexts, while the battles were in progress. Thus, whether or not Nigerians left Personal Biographies, Diaries and written Recollections of their experiences could not account for their omission and relegation to the margins. Because were the History of Operation Thursday written entirely on the basis of personal Biographies, Diaries and Recollections, then we would, indeed, have a much fractionalised, incoherent and disjointed History of Operation Thursday.

There is abundant evidence in War Office and Cabinet Office Documents at The National Archives and at The Imperial War Museum from which the History of Nigerian Chindits could have been written. Major General Thompson probably visited The Imperial War Museum Research Room when he was researching his book in collaboration with The Imperial War Museum because there is evidence of his visits to the Museum’s Research facilities. There is evidence that he consulted Major General Wingate’s, Brigadier Tulloch’s, and HQ 3rd Indian Division’s Official Papers. Because he was probably the one who left the numerous notes, comments and signposts behind. One of the comments noted that the Record of Engagements relating to the Spider Brigade’s activities during the Battles of White City have been omitted from the Record of the Brigade’s Battlefield activities. Thus, if we are right in our belief that it was Major General Thompson who left the notes, comments and signposts behind we are grateful for his guidance. However, the issue needs to be raised why Major General Thompson and The Imperial War Museum did not question why the Spider Brigade’s Record of Engagement covering the period at White City was omitted from the Annals of the HQ of the 3rd Indian Division while the Record of Engagements of the 14th, 16th, 23rd, 77th and 111th Brigades were duly recorded in the Annals of the HQs 3rd Indian Division⁶². The 23rd Brigade fought at Kohima under the Command of the 33rd Indian Corps and its Record of Engagements was duly recorded in the Annals of the 33rd Indian Corps. And because the 23rd Brigade was a Brigade of the 3rd Indian Division its Record of Engagements was subsequently, and rightly, recorded in the Annals of the HQs 3rd Indian Division. Yet, no such detailed records exist for the Spider Brigade.

The anomalies identified by Major General Thompson in the Record of Engagement of the Spider Brigade are profound and are therefore not mere accident. Because by examining the style of writing we saw that it was the same anonymous British Officer who wrote the entire documents containing the Record of Engagement of the Brigades of the 3rd Indian Division, including those of the Spider Brigade. Additionally, we found that while the anonymous British Officer took great care to ensure that the Record of Engagements of the 14th, 16th, 23rd, 77th and 111th Brigades were detailed and that they covered the entire period in which these Brigades were on the Battlefield during Operation Thursday he truncated the entire Record of Engagement of the Spider Brigade at White City to a single date, namely, the 23rd of April 1944. Yet, at no time in the subsequent publication of their research did Major General Thompson and The Imperial War Museum question the duplicity and motives of the anonymous British Officer who compiled the Records.

As we have