of the Greek army and remained to guard their retreat with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, fighting to the death. Although the Greeks lost the battle, it did check the advance of the Persian army and the delay helped the Greeks prepare a successful defence and ultimately win the war. Buying time Sometimes, rather than face annihilation at the hands of a pursuing victorious army, a rearguard will be tasked by the commander of the defeated army with hindering the advance of the victorious army. Even if the rearguard is destroyed in a last stand, its sacrifice may buy their commander time to disengage without losing the majority of his army as happened during the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778), Battle of Tirad Pass (1899), the Dunkirk evacuation (1940, in World War II), the Battle of Taejon (1950), which was crucial to establish the Pusan Perimeter, the Battle of the Imjin River (1951), and the Battle of Badgam (1947) which proved to be critical to preventing the fall of Srinagar to tribal lashkars. Perceived duty A last stand may also be the last pitched battle of a war where the position of the defending force is hopeless but the defending force considers it their duty not to surrender until forced to do so, as happened to the last Royalist field army of the First English Civil War at the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold in 1646. At the Battle of Saragarhi in 1897, the British Indian contingent consisting of 21 Sikh soldiers of the 36th Sikhs, when faced with insurmountable opposition of 10,000 Afghans, decided to make a last stand in accordance with their traditional and religious belief that duty is above all convictions. All 21 Sikhs were killed, together with approximately 600 Afghans. During the Battle of Okinawa the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Yamato sailed from the Japanese home islands to join the fight, in which she would have been hopelessly outgunned. As a last ditch effort she would have beached herself on the shore, her crew joining the troops on the island and using her as a stationary gun battery. Yamato was sunk on her approach with the loss of some 3,055 crew of her complement of 3,332 after coming under attack from a large strike force of carrier borne aircraft. Given the tactical situation, one battleship accompanied by several smaller vessels with no air support against a fleet