Raid

RAID004 - Who Dares Wins

For 5 days in May 1980, thousands watched around the world as the shadowy figures of the SAS performed a daring and dramatic raid on the Iranian Embassy in London, catapulting a little-known specialist unit into the full glare of the world's media...

RAID009 - Rescuing Mussolini Gran Sasso 1943

The successful rescue of imprisoned Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from atop the Gran Sasso plateau by German glider-borne troops on 12 September 1943 was one of the most dramatic Special Forces operations in military history. Arrested by his own...

RAID011 - Pegasus Bridge: Bénouville D-Day 1944

The night before D-Day, light infantry and a detachment of Royal Engineers landed by gliders at Pegasus Bridge, which spanned the Caen Canal. Quickly overwhelming the guards, they managed to hold the bridge and help prevent German reinforcements from...

RAID015 - A Far-Flung Gamble

At the height of the Seven Years' War, Great Britain made an audacious strike at the heart of Spanish colonial power in the Caribbean. Gathering troops from bases in Britain and Canada and sailing across the Atlantic in secrecy was an incredible feat...

RAID016 - Dambusters: Operation Chastise 1943

In May 1943, a specially established RAF squadron made its permanent imprint on military aviation history by flying a high-risk, low-level, nighttime attack against German hydro-electric dams vital to the Nazi armaments industry in the Ruhr Valley. A...

RAID033 - U-47 in Scapa Flow: The Sinking of HMS Royal Oak 1939

Even with Germany in the ascendency at the beginning of World War II, Scapa Flow was supposed to be the safe home base of the British Navy. Nothing and nobody could penetrate the defences of this bastion, which was built up to formidable levels in World...

RAID041 - Tombstone

The Gunfight at the OK Corral on 26 October 1881 is one of the most enduring stories of the Old West. It led to a series of violent incidents that culminated in the Vendetta Ride, in which Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and several other gunslingers went...

RAID042 - The Swamp Fox: Francis Marion’s Campaign in the Carolinas 1780

Opposed by "Bloody" Tarleton's Raiders, American Revolution patriots under Francis Marion fought a brutal guerrilla war throughout South Carolina and North Carolina.The American Revolution was deadlocked in the north, and after the battle at Monmouth...

RAID044 - Carlson's Marine RAIDders: Makin Island 1942

After the Guadalcanal landings, Admiral Nimitz wanted to distract Japanese attention by launching an amphibious raid elswhere. Foreshadowing Bloody Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and countless other landings in the face of intense Japanese resistance, the...

RAID049 - Stirling’s Desert Triumph

The night of July 26, 1942 saw one of the most audacious raids of World War II, just as the outcome of that conflict hung in the balance. In North Africa, a convoy of 18 Allied jeeps carrying Special Air Service personnel appeared out of the...

RAID052 - Operation Eagle Claw 1980

A fully illustrated history of the disastrous 1980 attempt to rescue the 53 US Embassy hostages in Tehran, which involved the new Delta Force and a complex series of airlifts, hides and refueling stops in the Iranian desert.Following months of...

RAID055 - Big Guns in the Atlantic

In the early months and years of World War II, it was Germany's cruisers and battleships that most ravaged the Atlantic Convoys. This is the history of those raids, and how the success of 1941's Operation Berlin led directly to the Kriegsmarine sending...

RAID54 - Storm-333

Storm-333 was the opening move in the Soviet-Afghan War, a special-forces mission to seize Kabul and assassinate Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin. At once a textbook success for the Spetsnaz and KGB and the start of a terrible strategic blunder for the...