Remarkable story of a hero in Koshima

His father Hugh, a Carrickfergus man, was a building contractor and his mother, Harriet Annie, was an Irish-speaking native of Cork. By 1911 the family was living on Clooney Terrace and the young Henry was a pupil at Foyle College.

In 1918, at the age of 18, Laverty applied to enter the Royal Military College, Sandhurst from where he was commissioned into his local regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He was to have a distinguished Army career but not with the 'Skins'. In 1922, the Inniskillings were reduced to a single-battalion regiment and many of the unit's officers had to seek homes elsewhere. Laverty was one of those and he transferred his commission to the Essex Regiment, which continued to mark its Irish origins by celebrating St Patrick's Day.

By 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Laverty, known popularly as Dan, was commanding a Territorial Army battalion (TA), 4th Queen's Own Royal West Kents, in India. Known as the 'Dirty Half Hundred' from their original designation as the 50th Regiment of Foot and the black facings of their scarlet tunics, Laverty's battalion was serving in 161 Brigade of 5th Indian Division in 1944.

Although being pushed back everywhere else in the Far East, the Japanese chose early-1944 to launch an attack on India, the so-called 'march on Delhi'. Their hope was that, with the renegade Indian National Army (INA) under its charismatic leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, in the invasion force, Indian soldiers would desert the British and join the invaders while rebellion would break out in India itself. Instead, the Imperial Japanese Army was to suffer the greatest defeat in Japanese history.

Indian soldiers played a major part in that defeat. However, one of the best remembered elements of the story of the battles of Kohima and Imphal is the defence of the district commissioner's bungalow at Kohima in which Colonel Dan Laverty and his 'Dirty Half Hundred' earned a remarkable place in history.

Lieutenant General Bill Slim was planning the liberation of Burma when the Japanese struck in the spring of 1944. Initially the Japanese intended only to delay the British offensive into Burma but Japanese commanders became convinced that they could push into India and even conquer the country. This change of plan was supported by the Japanese prime minister and so the scene was set for one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War.

On 15 March, Japanese troops crossed the Chindwin river and were soon in action against British and Indian troops at Sangshak. Slim realised that the enemy were trying to reach Kohima and Imphal, which were to provide the Allied jumping-off area for the liberation of Burma. Moreover, he knew that they would also want to capture Dimapur, the huge supply base to sustain Fourteenth Army on its march into Burma. And this was a main Japanese intention. General Mutaguchi believed that the capture of British equipment, food and ammunition at Dimapur would provide his Fifteenth Army with all it needed for the 'march on Delhi'.

British and Indian troops had been engaged in battle with the Japanese in the Arakan, on Burma's western seaboard, and had emerged victorious. Mutaguchi reckoned that Slim could not move the formations in Arakan quickly enough to stop the Japanese invading India. He was wrong. For the first time in history, an entire division – 5th Indian – was airlifted. Over several days the division – over 12,000 men – was flown from Burma's Arakan to India's north-east frontier. Included in 5th Indian Division was 161 Brigade, in which served Dan Laverty's 4th Royal West Kents.

After some confusion between a local commander and 161 Brigade's commander – 'Daddy' Warren, an Irishman – Slim ruled in Warren's favour and Laverty's battalion was ordered into Kohima. The 'Dirty Half Hundred' arrived just as the Japanese cut the road to Imphal and Dimapur. Thus Laverty's men, with a raw Nepalese battalion and some Assamese and Burmese troops, became the Kohima garrison as the Japanese laid siege to the town in early-April.

Enemy artillery crashed down on Kohima and Japanese infantry made attack after attack on the garrison's positions. The district commissioner's bungalow became the front line. More accurately, the front line was the commissioner's tennis court with defenders to one side and Japanese attackers to the other. Both sides were within grenade-throwing range of each other and snipers picked off anyone unfortunate enough to show himself in the wrong place.

Before long, Kohima looked like a landscape from the Great War. Trees were blasted, buildings demolished and bodies lay everywhere. Anyone trying to recover bodies was shot at and the stench of death was everywhere. In the midst of all this, Colonel Laverty seemed to be everywhere, organising the defences and encouraging his soldiers. To the men of the West Kents, he was known as 'Texas Dan', although no one called him that to his face.

Of medium height and build, Laverty possessed an aura of leadership and inspired tenacity in his men. The Japanese proved to be the toughest opponents the British Army has ever fought, preferring to die in suicidal charges rather than surrender or admit that their tactics were flawed and withdraw. And so, when any other foe would have withdrawn, the Japanese continued their attacks. More corpses littered the tennis court and the area around the defensive positions.

Then the Japanese broke through at the bungalow area and captured Kuki Picquet, cutting the garrison's positions in two. Still Laverty's men held out in spite of horrendous losses with the tennis court still the focus of fighting. Then, on 19/20 April a relief force from 6 Brigade broke through to relieve the Kohima garrison. Over a two-day period the defenders handed over to the fresh soldiers of the relieving brigade, part of 2nd Division.

Laverty's battalion had been 446-strong when it reached Kohima. When it was relieved, 278 of those men had been killed or wounded during the 16 days of the siege. In the words of an officer of 6 Brigade, 'They looked like aged bloodstained scarecrows dropping with fatigue, the only thing clean about them was their weapons and they smelt of blood, sweat and death.'

One of the West Kents' dead, Lance Corporal John Harman, had won a posthumous Victoria Cross in the early days of the siege. On one occasion, he charged an enemy machine-gun post only 50 yards from his section's position, wiped out the gun team and brought their weapon back. The next day he led a bayonet charge on a group of Japanese who were digging a new position. As he returned to his own position he was shot and wounded fatally.

When the battle of Kohima ended finally in June, the Japanese had suffered the greatest defeat and loss of life that their army had ever sustained. Nowhere else in the Far East did Japanese land forces suffer similar losses. Few were taken prisoner as, under the warrior code of bushido, they preferred death to the shame of surrender.

It was the leadership of men like Slim, Brigadier 'Daddy' Warren and Colonel Dan Laverty that broke the Japanese spirit and caused one of their generals to write that he left Kohima 'weeping'. As Allied troops landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944, other Allied troops were bringing to an end the battle sometimes referred to as the 'Stalingrad of the East'.

Dan Laverty was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions at Kohima. The citation for his award tells us that:

During the period of the defence of Kohima Lieutenant Colonel Laverty proved himself to be a commander of outstanding ability.

In most difficult circumstances and, in face of heavy casualties, his battalion never wavered and due to his personal tenacity and leadership was responsible for the defeat of attack after attack by the Japanese.

Throughout the period of (the] siege Lieutenant Colonel Laverty was quite tireless and displayed powers of leadership and command of the highest order.

The formation that relieved Kohima was 2nd Division which also suffered horrendously. When the Japanese were forced to withdraw, 2nd Division erected a memorial at Kohima bearing words that have become immortal.

When you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.