The Hill 203 of the Ocean

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Peter H
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The Hill 203 of the Ocean

#1

Post by Peter H » 13 May 2007, 14:28

The landing at Kota Bharu, Malaya, on the 7th December1941.

From Singapore Burning:Heroism and Surrender in World War 2,Colin Smith:

Afterwards, a Japanese journalist called the Kota Baharu landings, “the Hill 203 of the Ocean”. There could be no higher praise. In 1904, Hill 203 was the Russian held stronghold above China’s Port Arthur (now Lü-shun) where, in the war against the Czar, Count Nogi Maresuke had sacrificed wave after wave of infantry, among them one of his sons, until the Russians tired of killing and the hill was his. (Known as “The Last Samurai”, in 1912 the Count and his wife mourned the Emperor’s death by committing ritual suicide.)

Nogi lost more killed than Takumi’s entire command and the only tactical similarity was that Hill 203 and Kota Baharu were both diversionary attacks. What happened to the first Japanese to step ashore in Malaya had much more in common, though again on a smaller scale, with what the American infantry would suffer some thirty months later on Normandy’s Omaha beach. It was, by any standards, a sanguinary beginning to Japan’s assault on South-East Asia.

For some time, the barbed wire entanglements continued to prove insurmountable and, as they bunched up behind them, so the Japanese losses mounted. Those who tried to get away from the more obvious fixed lines of the Bren guns began to set off the land mines that had been sewn in such profusion. Nearly all the battalion and company commanders were hit though at least two were trying to continue to lead while being carried about on stretchers. Major-General Takumi managed to leave the stricken Awagisan Maru and get ashore with the second wave some time around 3am, arriving with a company whose commander had been killed on deck when one of the Hudsons straffed the ship. Within minutes of getting to the beach the officer who had succeeded him was also killed. Takumi then personally took command of this and another leaderless company and ran and crawled with them towards the wire.

Most contemporary western armies of the day used explosive charges to get through thick barbed wire entanglements. The British, for instance, had developed the Bangalore Torpedo: an alloy pipe about one-and-a-half inches in circumference packed with gun cotton and usually six foot in length though sections could be joined together to clear a way through both entanglements and, it was hoped, mines by detonating those either side of it.

For all their intensive preparation, Takumi’s men do not appear to have had anything like this at their disposal. Instead, using bayonets, helmets and spoons taken from their knapsacks, his soldiers began to burrow their way like turtles into the soft sand under the wire until they were deep enough to crawl beneath it. According to one Japanese account this was done by lines of men lying abreast, “digging the ground frantically and gradually crowding forward”. Behind them the next line of crawling men would deepen the trench the vanguard had excavated beneath wire, gently pulling aside casualties.

Then Sendoi and the other Japanese warships had begun to lay down accurate fire with their heavy guns. Near misses were blowing sand through the loopholes of the pillboxes which, combined with the sweet smelling cordite from the bren guns, made the defenders’ eyes water and stung their faces. Soon the air in these concrete boxes became so bad their defenders started wearing their gas masks. In any case, some of them were already convinced that they were dealing with something more lethal than a cocktail of sand and gunsmoke. “A kind of tear gas,” suspected one of the Dogras’ British officers. Japan had acquired a reputation for occasional chemical warfare in China where neutral observers had accused them of using mustard gas. Whether some of the naval shells that landed on the beaches at Kota Baharu were loaded with gas has never been confirmed. It seems an unlikely tactical risk. The British were not the Chinese. However threadbare their military garrisons east of Suez were, the pre-war obsession with gas attacks was such that perhaps the one thing they were well prepared for was retaliation. Stockpiled in Singapore were almost 12,000 mustard gas shells for 25-pounder field guns plus bombs and cylinders for the RAF to drop or spray like crop dusters.

Gas or no gas, here were men trying to defend pillboxes during a night attack who could now see even less through their thick gas goggles. Nor was this their only setback. Brigadier’s Keys worst fears had come true. Despite the cross fire, armoured landing craft had managed to get between the two spits of sand where a boom might have stopped them but certainly not the Indians’ heaviest weapon, the Boys anti-tank rifle which fired a huge .55 round, kicked like a mule and had acquired a reputation during the German blitzkrieg across France for rarely meeting its trade description.

By daybreak on 8 December, with the war about six hours old, a good many of the Japanese had penetrated the waterways which jigsawed the land behind the beach defences. Japanese walking wounded on their way back to the beach, some of them helped by comrades, were filing past Takuma’s headquarters staff bloody, muddy, soaked to the skin and utterly exhausted.

http://www.geocities.com/dutcheastindie ... bharu.html
Both sides sustained substantial casualties during the battle. There are no reliable records of British losses, but they certainly were high. Accounts of Japanese casualties vary wildly. Louis Allen, quoting Japanese sources, put the number at 500. Of these, 150 were suffered by troops still on board the transports and the remaining 350 were inflicted during the short journey to the shores or on the beach. On the other hand, Colonel Tsuji put in his book the Japanese losses at 320 killed in action and 538 wounded and calls Kota Bharu "one the most violent actions of the Malaya Campaign".

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Peter H
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#2

Post by Peter H » 13 May 2007, 14:33

The IJN transport Awajisan Maru (9,794 tons) was the first Japanese ship of any type to be sunk in World War 2.

http://malaysiadivingcommunity.com/foru ... topic=1893
The Awajisan Maru (or Awagisan Maru) was the first Japanese ship of any type to be sunk during World War 2, at night on December 8th, 1941. It was a troop carrier as you mentioned. Contrary to popular beliefs, the first shots of World War 2 in the Pacific were fired at Kota Bharu, while Nagumo's fighter bombers were making their way to Pearl Harbour.

The Awajisan Maru was anchored some 3km off Kota Bharu with several other troop transports, the Ayatosan Maru and Sakura Maru. The Awajisan Maru belonged to the Mitsui Line company but was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the onset of World War 2. She was bombed by British Hudson bombers and set afire, and then sunk by the Dutch submarine K XII. She was of 9,794 tons (gross), with a single 9,600BHP engine that could giver her a 19.9 knots top speed.

Image
http://www.interq.or.jp/white/ishiyama/ ... n_maru.jpg


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Peter H
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#3

Post by Peter H » 13 May 2007, 14:43

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_I ... _of_Malaya
The ships were carrying approximately 5,200 troops of the Takumi Detachment, commanded by Major-General Hiroshi Takumi, who was on board IJN transport Awajisan Maru. The majority of these troops were veterans of the war in China.

The force consisted of the 56th Infantry Regiment (Colonel Yoshio Nasu, on board IJN transport Sakura Maru), one mountain artillery battery of the 18th Mountain Artillery Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Katsutoshi Takasu), the 12th Engineer Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Ichie Fujii), the 18th Division Signal Unit, one company of the 12th Transport Regiment, one company of the 18th Division Medical Unit and No. 2 Field Hospital of the 18th Division Medical Unit. They were escorted by a powerful escort fleet (Kota Bharu Invasion Force) under the command of Rear-Admiral Shintaro Hashimoto, consisting of a light cruiser Sendai, destroyers Ayanami, Isonami, Shikinami and Uranami, minesweepers No. 2 and No. 3, and subchaser No. 9.
Has anyone got details on Major General Takumi Hiroshi?

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Peter H
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Re: The Hill 203 of the Ocean

#4

Post by Peter H » 06 May 2008, 05:48

Under the wire at Kota Bharu -Japanese 1943 postcard
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