India, Nov. 9 -- Three Victoria Cross-winning actions of a single unit along the Tiddim-Bishenpur-Imphal road and one unknown British Sergeant and seven soldiers in a trench along with others at Garrison Hill in Kohima during World War II prevented the Japanese from reaching India. The twin thrusts of an overstretched Japanese Army, one aiming for Dimapur and the other Imphal, were thwarted in the spring of 1944. This remarkable recovery of the British Indian Army, decimated in the first Burma War, across the Sittang river and in full retreat chased by the Japanese is encapsulated in Field Marshal Slim's book Defeat Into Victory. The casualties were crippling. The leftovers of 2/5 Gorkha Rifles (Frontier Force), which had taken 400 casual...