There have been uncountable episodes in military history were rearguards, made up of merely a handful of brave and determined men, staved off superior enemy forces. The stories of most of them were soon forgotten, having been too small and insignificant to be noted in thick history books. But for the men who took part in them, these actions were momentous. They knew what likely fate awaited them. These measures were by their very nature usually desperate ones, and their outcome had almost always meant inevitable annihilation. But their love of their land, families and their camaraderie too, gave them the needed strength and determination to help them overcome their fear of the predictable fate: Death. Will the difficult operation described within these pages follow the same pattern?