Triumph at Kapyong

Submitted by dmacdonell on Mon, 2010-10-18 14:56

Triumph at Kapyong

Canada’s Pivotal Battle in Korea

By Dan Bjarnason

978-1-55488-872-6
March 2011
200pp, Paperback
$22.99 CAD

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Bjarnason mixes the official histories with a visit to the site, which makes for a rounded description. The sights, the sounds and the smells give an immediacy that official recountings exclude.

The Winnipeg Free Press

Bjarnason’s book, Triumph at Kapyong, documents an extraordinary moment in Canadian and Korean history that was as unlikely as it was unknown.

The Toronto Star

April 24th, 1951,was a lonely, moon-lit night in Korea. On a godforsaken hill, a few hundred surrounded Canadian soldiers waited for the fight of their lives to begin. Soon, Chinese communist troops in their thousands, swarmed around them, plunging straight towards the Korean capital, Seoul. These Canadians were all that blocked the way. This is the story of the first battle by Canada’s first soldiers in the Korean War: the 2nd Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. These volunteers were straight from Central Casting: truck drivers, construction workers, kids just out of high school, and bored farm boys. Outnumbered and outgunned, this people's army of amateurs beat off some of the toughest troops on earth. This battle that's become a legend takes its name from a nearby peanut-sized village: Kapyong. It's become a mythic Canadian story, except this is mythology that is real.