The premise is, exile for an entire group of people on a very remote
and dangerous planet.  The first night 300 people died of exposure. 
One of the men was hanged the second night for hoarding supplies for
himself.  For years the survivors planned revenge on their enemies. 
They sent a radio transmission knowing it would be generations before
it was heard and even longer before it would be answered and they
needed to be ready for total war when their enemies came back to
destroy them.
I have never stopped looking for this old book.  I enjoyed it as a
teenager and want to know if I can find it again.

The descriprion of the story also it does seem to incorpoate several
common themes appears to match most closely to that of  Tom Godwin's
"The Survivors" it is published by Baen's in the book "The Cold
Equations" which collects several of the author's best works. In fact
if you go to the baen homepage you can read the entire of "The
Survivors" for free as part of their reading samples. You can go
directly to:

http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200304/0743436016___1.htm