Special operations involve small, highly trained and prepared units conducting high-risk, high-payoff strategic missions. This tag highlights battles defined by stealth, precision, and asymmetric objectives.
How well do you really know military operations?
From OVERLORD and BAGRATION to JAYWICK, KINGPIN, CASTOR and GOTHIC SERPENT, military history is filled with memorable, and sometimes mysterious, operational codenames.
Test your knowledge with 20 questions randomly selected from a 50-question bank, spanning the Second World War, Korea, Indochina, Vietnam and conflicts around the world. Every attempt is different.
Operation KINGPIN, the Son Tay Raid, on the night of 20/21 November 1970, was a meticulously planned U.S. military operation to rescue American prisoners of war (POWs) from the Son Tay prison North Vietnam. It was one of the most audacious operations in military history. The operation involved a joint force of U.S. Army Special Forces and Air Force personnel. Despite the operation’s almost flawless execution, it failed to achieve its primary objective, as the POWs had been relocated to other sites.
Pointe du Hoc, a prominent headland between Utah and Omaha Beaches, was a critical objective on D-Day. The German position was equipped with a battery of 155mm howitzers capable of targeting the American landing beaches.
The mission to assault Pointe du Hoc was assigned to the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions. The Rangers would scale the 100 feet high cliffs under fire, destroy the German guns, and hold the position until relieved by forces from Omaha Beach.
Operation Anthropoid was one of the most significant acts of resistance against Hitler’s regime. Planned and executed by Czechoslovakian operatives in collaboration with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), Operation Anthropoid targeted Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official and one of the principal architects of the Holocaust.