By IANS
London : Major-General Harry Grimshaw, who was born in India and played a key role in the battle of Kohima during the Second World War, has died at the age of 96.
Grimshaw saw front-line during a career which ranged from the North West Frontier of India in 1932 to the Eoka operation in Cyprus in 1956. He accompanied 161 Indian Infantry (Mechanised) Brigade (161B), part of 5th Indian Division, to Burma in 1943 and fought in the first successful operations against the Japanese in the Arakan.
Hurriedly withdrawn from the front line, the brigade was flown to Dimapur on the northern front and held the Japanese at Kohima. During the siege, Grimshaw took command of 1st Battalion 1 Punjab Regiment (1/1PR).
The battalion played a notable part in the fighting and in the pursuit of the Japanese 33rd Division in monsoon weather through the wild country to the Chindwin river, according to Grimshaw’s obituary in the Daily Telegraph.
At the age of 33 he was one of the youngest brigade commanders. Grimshaw was born in India, where his father was serving with 1 Punjab Regiment, and was educated at Brighton College and Sandhurst.
He was commissioned into his father’s regiment in 1931 and up to the outbreak of the Second World War saw service in the tribal territories of the North West Frontier and later in Bengal.
He reportedly loved this period of his service when he was able to indulge his passion for fishing and big-game shooting in the Himalayas. In 1939 Grimshaw rejoined 1/1Punjab Regiment as adjutant and moved with the battalion to Iraq and then to Libya.
After the Japanese surrender, Grimshaw accompanied the brigade to Java where trouble had broken out at Surabaya but he returned to India in 1946 and the next year went home to Ireland.
When India gained its independence, Grimshaw transferred to The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and went with them to then Malaya.