5-я Индийская пехотная дивизия во Второй мировой войне

Infantry division of the Indian Army during World War II
the World War I formation

The 5th Indian Infantry Division was an infantry division of the Indian Army during World War II that fought in several theatres of war and was nicknamed the "Ball of Fire". It was one of the few Allied divisions to fight against three different armies the Italian, German and Japanese armies. The division was raised in 1939 in Secunderabad with two brigades under command. In 1940, the 5th Indian Division moved to Sudan and took under command three British infantry battalions stationed there and was reorganised into three brigades of three battalions each. The division fought in the East African Campaign in Eritrea and Ethiopia during 1940 and 1941, thence moving to Egypt, Cyprus and Iraq. In 1942, the division was heavily engaged in the Western Desert Campaign and the First Battle of El Alamein. From late 1943 to the Japanese surrender in August 1945, it fought continuously from India through the length of Burma. After the end of the war, it was the first unit into Singapore and then fought pro Independence forces in Eastern Java.

The 5th Indian Division, under the command of Major General Lewis Heath and comprising only two brigades at the time, was sent from India to the Sudan to reinforce the British forces there under Lieutenant General Sir William Platt which had been attacked by Italian forces in Eritrea, at the time part of the Italian East African Empire. On 10 June 1940, before the arrival of the 5th Division, Platt had only three infantry battalions and the machine gun companies of the Sudan Defence Force. The 5th Division started to arrive in the Sudan in early September 1940 and absorbed Platt's three British infantry battalions (the 1st Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, the 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment,) and formed a third infantry brigade. After these rearrangements, the division consisted of the 9th, 10th and 29th Indian Infantry Brigades. For the next three months, the division was involved in a series of aggressive skirmishing operations to keep the Italian forces off balance and confused as to Platt's longer term intentions. In early 1941, Platt's forces were further augmented by the 4th Indian Infantry Division, rushed from the Western Desert after the breakthrough during Operation Compass, and an attack was launched into Eritrea on 18 January. The climax of the campaign was the Battle of Keren, a fiercely fought series of engagements against superior numbers, which ended with victory for Platt's forces on 1 April. After Keren, the 4th Indian Division was withdrawn to Cairo and the 5th Indian Division continued the campaign in Eritrea, finally joining up with elements of Lieutenant General Alan Cunningham's forces, which had advanced north from Kenya to capture Italian Somaliland and the Italian capital of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, to take the surrender of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, the Italian Viceroy, at Amba Alagi.

9 and 10 Brigades of 5 Indian Division were newly stationed around Tobruk when Rommel's offensive against the Gazala Line commenced at the end of May 1942. Fresh to the desert, just recently equipped with obsolete anti tank guns and poor transport, they were ordered to counterattack (Operation Aberdeen) the German breakthrough. The operation was badly mismanaged by the Corps commander; tank and artillery support failed to materialise and casualties were crippling – every one of the West Yorks officers who participated was killed or wounded. The remnants were withdrawn first to Mersa Matruh then to the rudimentary defences at Alamein, where, reformed, they garrisoned the line, formed mobile 'Jock columns' and participated in successful counterattacks in the First Battle of El Alamein in July. After the Battle of Alam Halfa in August, they were withdrawn to garrison duties in Iraq before being shipped to Burma in mid 1943.

At the end of 1943, the division began to take part in the Burma Campaign. It was facing the Japanese 55th Division on the coastal flank of the Arakan front. The defeat of the Japanese 55th Division in the Battle of the Admin Box, to which a large share of the credit must go to the 5th Indian Infantry Division, was the first big victory against the Japanese since they had invaded Burma two years previously. From the victory in the Arakan sector, the 5th Indian Infantry Division was air lifted to the central front. 161 Brigade joined XXXIII Corps, which was beginning to arrive at Dimapur, and fought in the Battle of Kohima; the remainder of the division reinforced IV Corps, whose land victory at Kohima and Imphal, in which the division played an important part, proved to be the turning point of the Burma Campaign. Except for one period of rest and reorganization, the Indian 5th Division continued to fight and to advance throughout the rest of the war, and took part in the final thrust by IV Corps down to Rangoon.