Battle of Kohima: Survivor of one of WWII's bloodiest battles on why he is flying to Tokyo to meet his former foes

Roy Welland is 94, but is still fighting to control memories from more than 70 years ago. For the former commando, who served in Burma during the Second World War, is one of a handful of survivors still alive who fought in one of the bloodiest – and least known – battles of the war.

Fierce fighting between British and Indian forces against the Japanese army in Kohima, northern India, in 1944, resulted in around 11,000 dead – more than half of them Japanese soldiers.

Among those killed were 70 men who Mr Welland knew personally, and he suffered nightmares for years afterwards about what he witnessed, and what he did, during the battle.

Yet next week he will travel to Tokyo to attend a reconciliation event bringing together British and Japanese veterans of Kohima, organised by the Foreign Office in a bid to bolster relations between the two countries.

Speaking to The Independent ahead of the trip, the 94-year-old, who joined the Army shortly before the start of World War Two, tells of his struggle to deal with his past. “I can bring it forward and I can push it to the back of my mind, but you never forget it, you can’t. I can’t explain why but it was pretty rough, and there was a lot of hand to hand fighting. Kohima was the worst.”

The veteran, who served in a Special Forces unit in Norway before going to the Far East with the Royal Berkshire Regiment, says: “I dreamt about it for quite a long time after I came out of the army. I used to sweat like a pig just talking about it.”

He continues: “You were stepping over bodies all over the place, just lying around, and the smell alone made you feel sick...you did everything in your trousers that you could think of, that’s crude but it’s true. I don’t care what anybody says, you did. But you do think ‘I don’t want to die yet,’...we were told to hang on and let them charge at us, with these Japanese officers screaming their heads off like maniacs.”

The 94-year-old admits: “We hated them of course we did, but you’ve got to hate because couldn’t stick a bayonet in a man if you didn’t.”

Mr Welland remembers bayoneting a Japanese soldier who rushed at him: “I was able to take one which I was very unhappy about because it was the first time I had ever done anything like that, but after that that was no problem, I had two or three after that. And seeing a man down on the floor, laying on the deck, screaming his head off because he’s been bayoneted in the stomach, that’s the worst place you can put a bayonet. But then again that’s the best place because it stops them altogether. It’s either them or you.”

The experience haunts him. “I still have a little tear about it though because I didn’t want to do it yet I did. But once the first one was over, it’s just like everything else... you know what it’s like and what to expect when you go again, that’s how I looked at it.”

And there is no guilt. “I did what had to be done, I’ve got no regrets for doing it.” But he doesn’t like talking about it. “It's not human to kill each other if you’ve been brought up right...you're brought up to respect people and help each other, not to go around shooting each other.”

Mr Welland adds: “I’m not proud of it, far from it. But it had to be done, otherwise I wouldn’t be here would I?”

He left the army after the war ended, and spent the rest of his working life as a production manager at an engineering company.

Sitting in the front room of his home in Colchester, where he lives with his 78-year-old partner Ruth Smith, he talks about the Remembrance Sunday service he’ll be attending tomorrow at the town’s war memorial.

“When you’re standing there during that two minute silence that’s the worst bit, I hate that two minute silence, I respect it but I stand there sometimes and say to myself I can see these lads, marching along, just 18 years old, I think of them and the tears come, you just can’t help it.” Yet the veteran bears no grudges towards those he fought against. He travelled to Japan for the first time last year, after a conversation with the daughter of a Japanese veteran at a meeting of the Burma Star Association prompted him to meet men who had fought against the British. “It was curiously, that’s how it started and it went from there…I’m glad I went.” He explains: “A lot of those chaps that were in the frontline were doing a job that I was doing, they were trying to kill me and I was trying to kill them and it’s as simple as that.”

One was upset over killing a British solider. “I said to the interpreter ‘if it makes him feel any better you tell him that I killed quite a number of his mates as well.’ He was alright, he’s got the same attitude as I do, and he wanted to make friends.”

Mr Welland is looking forward to a reconciliation reception at the British Embassy, Tokyo, next Thursday, where he will meet former foes. “I want to see the two countries get together a bit more and I think it’s time for forgiveness,” he remarks. “I should hate to think that somebody hated me for the rest of their lives, especially with a 70 year gap – it’s a hell of a long time.”

The former soldier adds: “I hope it won’t be the final trip I make to Japan, I feel very good in myself and I’m fairly active. I’d like to go back there on holiday, I’d encourage anyone to go there.”

As for the battle which traumatised him: “They should have a medal for Kohima, like they have for Normandy (D-Day Landings). They haven’t made one yet, but they ought to. It was a bigger battle than Normandy.”