black dog books' award-winning history series The Drum uses first-person accounts and non-fiction to bring history roaring to life.
This is the extraordinary story of a small force defeating a much larger one. It is the tale of the 550 men of the 39th Militia Battalion — called chocos because the regular soldiers thought they'd melt under pressure. In eight short and brutal weeks — from 20 August 1942 — these soldiers slowed, and eventually stopped, the advance of 6000 experienced Japanese troops of the Nankai division across the massive Owen Stanley range.
