Greatest commando missions of WWII?
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,334MI6 Agent
The special operations of WWII is an important part of the creation of Bond, not to mention how interesting and cool they are! I thought we could discuss them here, learn from each other and maybe end up with a top ten list. I'll start with some of my favourites, but please don't feel this is a definitive list in any way. Some members may google operations they never heard of before and learn so thing new. Hopefully more than a few will take part in a discussion and a few will offer their own suggestions.
Comments
* Operation Granite. To occupy Belgium and the Netherlands and continue into France in 1940 the Germans had to conquer the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael, one of the strongest military instalations in the world. 85 fallschirmjägers landed with glider planes and took control of the fortress in hours.
* Operation Gunnerside. "Nine men against the atom bomb". Nine Norwegian agents from the Linge Company (Special Operations Executive) parachute into occupied Norway, stealthily entered a heavily guarded factory in the mountains and blew up Hitler's chances of getting an atom bomb.
* Operation Oak. After a coup the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was held prisoners in a hotel on a mountain top in the Alps accessible only by gable car. German fallshirmjägers and Waffen -SS commandos landed with glider, freed the dictator after firing just one shot and flew him out of there in a small single-prop plane.
* The Cockshell Heroes. A hand full of commandoes from the Royal Marines Boom Patrol paddled canoes far into occupied France and blew up ships using magnetic mines.
* The Italians pioneered the use of attack divers with the unit Decima Flotigglia MAS. They anchored the ship Ottera on the Spanish coast next to Gibraltar to blow up allied ships. The divers used the Ottera as a floating base just like we see in Thunderball.
* Operation Jaywick. The mostly Australian Z Special Unit traveled Navarone-style in a civilian boat to Singapore, the longest journey behind enemy lines done by special forces in the war. In Japanese-occupied Singapore they used canoes to place magnetic mines on ships in the harbour.
* The Cabanatuan raid. All the POWs in this brutal Japanese prison camp i the Phillipines were rescued by US Airborne Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Phillipino guerillas.
* Operation Antropoid. Reinhart Heinrich was the commander of the Gestapo and SD intelligence service, organised the Holocaust and earned himself nicknames like "The blonde monster" and "The man with the iron heart". Czecoslovakian agents trained by the SOE in Britain assassinated him, but together with Czech civilians they paid the ultimate price afterwards.
Comments? Suggestions?
Perhaps you could use this similar thread ?
I did consider it, but in my opinion this topic needs and deserved a separate thread.
One thing that struck me while looking at famous commando missions during WWII for this thread was how few famous American examples I could find. Is this because I haven't found some of the examples out there or does it reflect reality?
The only other example I considered was the Rangers on Pointe de Hoc on D-day. I decided against it because the Rangers acted as elite light infantry supporting standard infantry in a huge operation. I was looking for special forces acting alone behind enemy lines.
If you know of more examples of impressive us commando missions, please post.
If my problems finding good US examples reflects reality, why is this? Could it be that the country entered the war late? But the US developed SF units very quickly after Pearl Harbour, Marine Raiders was the first. My theory is that special forces are best suited for surprises and being the underdog. Italy developed SF units before the war to support their surprise attacks on other countries, something those units often do well. But later in the war there was never much doubt the allies would invade Northern France or that the US would use the Pasific islands as stepping stones towards Japan.
Britain developed most of their SF units in 1940 when the country was the underdog with very few ways of bringing the war to the enemy, but commando raids worked against continental Europe with its long coasts that weren't properly fortified by the Germans yet.
When the US entered the war they were never really the underdog other than very early on for the navy in the Pacific. Why land a few hundred commandos on a hit-and-run raid if they could land a USMC division and stay there?
What do you think?
I'm not very knowledgable on the subjecty of commando missions, although it is undoubtedly a fascinating topic and one that I should get to grips with a bit more (as opposed to just reading Commando Comics, which I do quite regularly).
However, one mission that came to mind was the St Nazaire Raid, or Operation Chariot. There was a documentary on this raid, presented by Jeremy Clarkson, that came out about 15 years ago. I think it's on Youtube, and from what I recall it is well worth a watch.
Good call! I actually considered listing that raid, but mainly because of lazyness I decided against it.