THEIR numbers are dwindling, but those still alive who fought in one of the most critical battles of the Second World War will never forget those they left behind.

Their heroic efforts turned the tide in the Burma campaign and Lord Mountbatten described Kohima as "probably one of the greatest battles in history".

Yesterday, veterans who were able make the journey - they are all well into their 80s - gathered in York for a memorial service and wreath-laying at York Minster.

In 1942, the Army's Second Division had deployed to India, where, with the Royal Scots, the Durham Light Infantry, the Lancashire Fusiliers and the Cameron Highlanders, among many others, it mounted an engagement to relieve the embattled garrison at Kohima.

Despite being hampered by the monsoons and treacherous terrain, Allied soldiers succeeded in taking Kohima in hand-to-hand fighting that ended on the District Commissioner's tennis court.

Thousands lost their lives - but the Japanese army's seemingly inexorable march across Asia was brought to halt.

The Second Division was based in York, where a moving memorial exists in the Minster gardens. Every year, those veterans able to return remember their fallen comrades.

Yesterday, wreaths were laid by the Army's senior military officer for the North of England and Scotland, Major General David McDowall, Kohima veteran Major Gordon Graham, late of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, and Charles Chasie, of the Kohima Educational Trust. At the service in the Minster, another Kohima veteran, Captain Howard Woodcock, late of the 16th Field Regiment Royal Artillery, read Pericles' funeral oration.

Those who fell in battle 63 years ago were also remembered by a minute's silence, after which Corporal Ian Symes, a bugler from the Heavy Cavalry and Cambrai Band, sounded the Last Post and Reveille.