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Battlefield diggers
In the year 1944, from March to July, the Japanese attacked the allied forces in Imphal and surrounding areas and this battle coined as the Battle of Imphal was said to be the greatest battle fought in the history of the British Army. The twin Battle of Imphal and Kohima was voted as Britain’s greatest battle by a 2013 poll conducted by the British National Army Museum.
It was said the allied forces suffered over 12,603 casualties while the Japanese were said to have suffered 54879 causalities. Many of them buried without a name and for many families, there wasn’t closure as of yet.
The works of Rajeshwor Yumnam and his likeminded friends is bringing the focus back to the Battle of Imphal. Out of sheer passion, this 43 year old Rajeshwor and his team digs up relics and keeps in touch with the families who were yet to have a closure 76 years later.
The “Battlefield Diggers”, a name coined by Rajeshwor and friends for themselves, have been indulging in the finding of graves for the soldiers killed in action in the Battle of Imphal in the Second World War. It all started when a local channel In Imphal was telecasting a feature show on Battle of Imphal 10 years ago that had intrigued Rajeshwor to find out more. Finding the exact battlefield also required to match war diaries and research and it was exciting, says Rajeshwor.
The interest for these war relics is from both sides i.e British and Japanese. Sometimes, the great grandchildren requested him to placed flower on the graves and pay floral tributes on their behalf or help them find the graves itself. Some soldiers who died in Imphal doesn’t have graves and there is a want for excavation of the war site, he said. “In 2019, we found a mass grave of the Japanese army. The excavation was funded by the Japan Association for Recovery and Repatriation of War Casualties”, says Rajeshwor.
Another interesting fact is that Rajeshwor and his friends spends the money for the excavation or for floral tributes from their own pockets and doesn’t charge a penny from these families who have lost their loved ones. It is another thing if the families want to build a tombstone.
Rajeshwor Yumnam , along with his friend Arambam Angamba have founded the Battle of Imphal World War II Museum in 2013 and organises Imphal talks that speaks on the Manipur history and also keeps the collected war relics. Currently, Rajeshwor is in partnership with the BTV for filming an excavation site of a great grandfather for a women from Edinburgh in United Kingdom. We have found the burial site, he said sounding pleased.
He met Christopher D. Johnson , whose father George Johnson was a Sergeant Major at the Royal Northflox Company and fought in the Battle of Imphal at Kanglatombi. Luckily, George Jonhson returned home alive. Rajeshwor said that Christopher Johnson have done extensive study on the Battle of Imphal and have exhaustive knowledge on the subject. Christopher D. Johnson has also written a book called “The Forgotten Army’s Box of Loins: The True Story of the Defence and Evacuation of the largest Supply Depot on the Imphal Plain” which was published in 2001. It was through Christopher that maximum of the war families came in touch with Rajeshwor. He would send in copies of regimental war diaries from the National Archives London and Imperial War Museum that had opened up floodgates of information on this subject, says Rajeshwor.
Then, there is the Imphal Peace Museum which was funded by the Nippon Foundation and was a joint venture of the Manipur Tourism forum and Rajeshwor’s Imphal War museum. There, they have kept relics and artifacts that they have found while excavating.To avail the families of the soldiers to get a closure without having to visit faraway Imphal, there is an international photography project wherein the photos of the graves can be downloaded online which is funded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission , says Rajeshwor Yumnam. In the near future, Rajeshwor Yumnam says that he would be producing a YouTube channel based on the battlefield diggers and publishing books on the important battlefields of the Battle of Imphal.
Rajeshwor said it is out of sheer passion that they dig up the battlefields. There is joy in the process of finding a grave or a relic from the erstwhile battlefield. It requires procedural investigation. There is the need for map reference and comparison of war diaries to find a grave. For instance, there was this soldier called David Todd whose family believed that he died in the jungle of Burma during the Burma campaign. It was a big achievement when it was found that he actually died in Imphal. It required different stages of discovery to come to the conclusion that David Todd died in Imphal. That layers of discovery to come to a final conclusion also gives the excavators a kick to indulge in more excavation, says Rajeshwor.
Rajeshwor says that the Battle of Imphal is a forgotten part of history and need to be revived by including it in the school curriculam, at the college level as well as researchers can find a big treasure in the history of the Battle of Imphal. Intellectual discussions and war tourism on the Battle of Imphal need to be carried for it to be registered in the minds of the people that such an extremely important event that decided the fate for both the allied and the axis powers happened in Imphal, says Rajeshwor.
The battle of Imphal along with the twin battle of Kohima ended the ambition of the Japanese expansion into Burma. Not only the Japanese suffered huge casualties but the victorious Britain also suffered huge casualties that is said to have led to the decision to leave India. It is through the works of the Rajeshwor and his friends that they have kept alive the memories of the battle through their findings of war relics and artifacts and through their communication with the families who have lost their loved ones in the Battle of Imphal.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
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