When you go home, tell them of us and say
For their tomorrow, we gave our today.
This evocative epitaph at the Kohima War Memorial commemorates the fallen martyrs of the Battle of Kohima that pitched Japanese troops against their British-Indian counterparts. Waged between April and June 1944, the Japanese defeat in this critical battle effectively foiled Japanese plans to invade India.
But, while there is some awareness that the Japanese failed to annexe Indian mainland territory, the fact they had successfully captured the island territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and held on it for more than three years during 1942-1945 is not generally known. ,
On March 23, 1942, the Japanese aircraft carrier, Ryūjō, accompanied by a navy contingent, arrived at Ross and Chatham Island, located very close to Port Blair. Facing virtually no resistance, they quickly took over, as most British army officers and civilian administrators had already left in January when the British began to suspect that the islands could be a takeover target.
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