Qualla: Battle of the Tennis Court

Battle of the Tennis Court: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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.

Battle of the Tennis Court: The Ridge at the Edge of India

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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 ...

Battle of the Tennis Court: Thirty Minutes Between Attacks

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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 t...

Battle of the Tennis Court: Plimsoll Shoes in the Dark

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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. Lieut...

Battle of the Tennis Court: A Grenade Match with No Winners

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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 casu...