most iconic special forces raids

05· The Wrong Address

Operation Flipper

The SAS killed Lieutenant Colonel Leutnant in his bed at the supposed Rommel villa — but Rommel wasn't in Africa that night. The wrong dead German ended a mission planned around one man.

19· The Wrong Address

Operation Thunderhead

A Navy SEAL drowned during a submarine lock-out intended to rescue a POW named John Dramesi — who had already escaped on his own. Lieutenant Melvin Dry died for a man who no longer needed saving.

20· The Wrong Address

Pebble Island raid

45 SAS men landed on Pebble Island in the Falklands dark, placed demolition charges on eleven Argentine aircraft, and were back at sea in 30 minutes — before the garrison knew they'd arrived.

22· The Wrong Address

Operation Eagle Claw

Eight Americans burned to death in the Iranian desert before a single shot was fired — a rescue mission that killed only its own rescuers, 53 hostages still chained inside Tehran.

24· The Wrong Address

Operation Kingpin

Colonel 'Bull' Simons accidentally landed his team in a Soviet-advised military school 400 meters off target, then fought through it and extracted — the wrong camp casualties never officially counted.

06· Men Who Shouldn't Have Walked Back

Operation Frankton

Ten canoeists paddled in pairs into Bordeaux harbour at night and limpet-mined six ships. Eight were captured or drowned; the two survivors walked 100 miles to Spain. Hitler's Commando Order had the eight shot.

07· Men Who Shouldn't Have Walked Back

Raid at Cabanatuan

Rangers and Alamo Scouts sprinted 30 miles behind Japanese lines to Cabanatuan, where 511 POWs — some carried on stretchers — were freed hours before a planned mass execution. Every prisoner made it out.

10· Men Who Shouldn't Have Walked Back

Operation Rimau

Ivan Lyon returned to Singapore on a second mission with folding kayaks and a plan to sink more ships. Japanese forces compromised the team; Lyon died armed on a rubber raft, never reaching shore.

12· Men Who Shouldn't Have Walked Back

Operation Jaywick

Ivan Lyon's six-man team paddled collapsible kayaks from a captured Japanese fishing boat into Singapore harbour and limpet-mined seven ships — sinking 37,000 tons of shipping — then paddled back out undetected.

04· The Stage is Live

Operation Nimrod (1980)

SAS abseil ropes tangled in flame on the Iranian Embassy facade; one man burned his hands raw descending through the fire. Eleven minutes later, five of six hostage-takers were dead — on live BBC.

14· The Stage is Live

Sabena Flight 571

Benjamin Netanyahu — then a 26-year-old Sayeret Matkal captain — was shot in the arm during the storming of hijacked Sabena Flight 571. He helped drag out a gunman while bleeding on the tarmac.

23· The Stage is Live

Operation Barras

A flock of live chickens airdropped as a distraction let 22 SAS soldiers rush a Sierra Leone jungle camp in 2000, freeing five hostages from a gang that called itself the West Side Boys.

25· The Stage is Live

GSG 9

Created in 1973 after German police used untrained officers at Munich and got nine hostages killed, GSG 9 made its debut four years later by storming a hijacked 737 in Mogadishu and losing no one.

13· Thieves of the Hidden Order

Operation Jericho

RAF Mosquitoes flew at rooftop height and bombed three precise gaps in Amiens prison walls, timed to let prisoners sprint through. Twelve pilots aimed for walls without killing the men pressed against them inside.

17· Thieves of the Hidden Order

Operation Claymore

Commandos raided the Norwegian Lofoten Islands and sailed home with fish oil, 228 prisoners — and an Enigma machine complete with rotors, recovered from a sinking German trawler before it went under.

18· Thieves of the Hidden Order

Operation Postmaster

SOE agents slipped into Spanish-controlled Fernando Poo, chloroformed harbour watchmen, threw grappling irons onto three Axis ships, and towed them into international waters — a neutral nation's port robbed without a shot fired.

09· The Killing Costume

Operation Acid Gambit

Delta Force freed CIA contractor Kurt Muse from Modelo Prison the same night U.S. tanks rolled into Panama City. The extraction helicopter was shot up and crash-landed on a parking garage roof.

01

1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon

Ehud Barak wore a wig and dress into Beirut, walked upstairs, and shot PLO commanders Abu Iyad and Kamal Adwan in their own apartments. The future prime minister was also the makeup artist.

02

Entebbe raid

A black Mercedes rolled onto Entebbe's tarmac impersonating Idi Amin's motorcade — it was two inches too long and the Ugandan soldiers didn't flinch. 102 hostages were freed in 90 minutes.

03

St Nazaire Raid

Commandos drank and fought ashore for hours not knowing the HMS Campbeltown packed five tons of delayed explosive beneath their feet. When it detonated, 40 German officers were inspecting the hull.

08

Killing of Osama bin Laden

A stealth Black Hawk — technology so classified it didn't officially exist — crashed in bin Laden's courtyard. SEALs blew it apart with thermite charges, but the tail section survived, photographed by the world.

11

Operation Chavín de Huántar

Peruvian commandos dug tunnels under the Japanese ambassador's residence for four months, learning the hostage-takers' football schedule to time the assault. 71 hostages freed; all 14 MRTA militants killed in nine minutes.

15

2009 Baraawe raid

Three Navy snipers on the fantail of USS Bainbridge fired simultaneously on a pre-arranged signal, each targeting one Somali pirate visible through a porthole — all three dropped in the same second, at night.

16

Operation Biting

British paratroopers landed on a French clifftop, dismantled a Würzburg radar dish under German fire, and carried its components back to England — handing scientists a device that changed the air war in six months.

21

Capture of the Caen Canal and Orne River bridges

Gliders scraped to a halt on a French bridge in complete darkness at 0016 on June 6, 1944 — Major John Howard's men were inside the German wire before the garrison heard a sound.