Raids....

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The Bruneval Worzburg radar raid by the Paras was a classic very smooth operation dispite it not being special ops or commandos it is my choice also PB not just the equipment captured but 2 techs as well not too shabby at all for a first battle honour.
 
There was a documentary on the St Nazaire raid presented by Jeremy Clarkson that I found informative, enthralling and entertaining. Maybe its on you tube somewhere?
 
Operation Panzerfaust,

known as Unternehmen Eisenfaust in Germany, was a military operation to occupy the Kingdom of Hungary conducted in October 1944 by the German Military Forces (Wehrmacht). When German dictator Adolf Hitler received word that Hungary's Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, was secretly negotiating his country's surrender to the advancing Red Army, he sent commando leader Lieutenant-Colonel of the Waffen-SS Otto Skorzeny to Hungary. Hitler feared that Hungary's surrender would expose his southern flank, where the Kingdom of Romania had just joined with the Soviets and cut off a million German troops still fighting the Soviet advance in the Balkan peninsula.


Having anticipated Horthy's move, Skorzeny had been instructed to remove Horthy from power. Horthy's son Miklós Horthy, Jr. was meeting with Soviet representatives. Miklós Jr. was informed by the German Security Service through intermediaries that envoys of Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia wanted to meet with him. Miklós Jr. had failed to keep a prior meeting when he observed suspicious individuals near the proposed meeting-place. A second meeting was set for early October 15 at the offices of Felix Bornemisza, the Director of the Hungarian Danube ports. He hoped that the Yugoslavian representatives might have important news, but upon entering the building, Skorzeny and his troops attacked him and beat him into submission. They then kidnapped Miklós at gunpoint, trussed him up in a carpet, and immediately drove him to the airport and flew him to Vienna and from there he was transported to the concentration camp at Mauthausen.
 

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Agree with both Marshall and renrich.....

The Cabanatuan raid to free 512 POWs who were without hope, and the Doolittle Raiders who boosted the morale and gave hope to an entire nation.

TO
 
I can't put Doolittle's raid on Japan in the rank of great raids. In fact I believe it was a huge mistake. If Enterprise and Hornet had been present at Coral Sea,instead of show boating in the North Pacific, the IJN might have been beaten more soundly than they were and Lexington probably would not have been sunk. Moreover, Hornet and her air group would have gotten much more operational experience and would have an asset at Midway instead of being largely ineffective. To risk two fleet carriers on a public relations stunt at that time during the war was, IMO, idiocy.
 

Gotta disagree with you ren. Regardless of whether it was a mistake or not, does not take away from the logistics of the raid or what was accomplished by the Raiders. Damage inflicted was a pin prick, but the morale boost was huge by all accounts. Medium bombers off a carrier on a one way mission was unprecedented and never duplicated.

I don't disagree with your Coral Sea argument, and the risk to Enterprise and Hornet was great. But the "public relations stunt" was at least part, if not most, of the reason the Japanese made their move on Midway. And that was a battle that needed to be fought, and won.

TO
 
Agree that the Doolittle raid was very innovative, TO, and a big surprise to Japanese and probably a boost to morale but that is extremely hard to quantify. Without that morale boost is US going to quit? Don't think so. Also effect on Japanese strategy as far as Aleutions and Midway is a reach. In "Shattered Sword" it seems to indicate that the Doolittle deal may have been a boost for the argument to draw out US carriers by attacking Midway, but it was always in Japanese minds to finally invade Hawai and the need to destroy the Pacific US carriers was necessary for that. Balance that with the risk of losing Enterprise and Hornet while attempting a mission of nothing more than a dubious boost to morale and the almost sure subsequent loss of Lexington because of lack of CAP caused by only having two carriers at Coral Sea plus the impotence of Hornet because of lack of operational experiece at Midway. It all worked out but it was a damned close run thing. IMO, Doolittle raid was a politically motivated stunt proposed by the AAF and FDR liked it so it was done. We were lucky during Doolittle raid, lucky to not lose Yorktown at Coral Sea and lucky to win Midway with effectively only two carriers. We would have not needed to be as lucky if BigE and Hornet had been at Coral Sea where they would have been if Navy had had it's way.
 
I think the Doolittle Raid was necessary. I understand and can agree with the Coral Sea argument, but the boost in morale and "PR Stunt" was, IMO, a bit more than just that. Up until this point, the Japanese had been unbeatable. Heck, an entire army surrendered to them without much more than token resistance in ...Hong Kong? Singapore? (mind is a bit foggy this early in the mornin), and they'd been steamrolling through China and the Pacific for several years. The world looked at the newspaper headlines and read about another Japanese victory. The Japanese people read their propagandapapers and listened to Radio Tokyo and believed all of the stories about Divine Destiny (or whatever they called it, creating the Greater Southeast Asia CoProsperity Sphere). And then Doolittle comes buzzing along, tosses a few bombs on Tokyo, and putters on into China. Great military victory? Massive infrastructure damage? Crippling blow to production/training? Nope. A sudden and violent rupture of pre-existing views of Japanese superiority and invincibility, calling into question the unshakable faith and blind devotion to the reigning military mindset? Yep. The world, and especially the US and her Allies in the Pacific, realized that they had been paying too much attention to what Radio Tokyo had been saying about themselves, and began to believe that the Japanese could be hurt, beaten. Carlson's Raiders attacked an island being held by Japanese forces and killed a lot of the garrison there (we won't go into all that went wrong with that particular venture...yet...), but Doolittle attacked the Japanese Home Island itself. The world changed their views and began to look at the Japanese not as invincible, but as tough foes: a rough road ahead, but winnable.

::steps off soapbox, goes in search of early-morning caffeine::
 
Another positive result of the raid was that a number of naval and air forces were recalled to protect the Japanese home islands and waters. Japanese naval presence in the Indian Ocean was reduced which relieved the pressure on the Royal Navy.

You're right ren, that the US would not have "quit" without the morale boost of the raid, and maybe was hard to quantify, but defining moments in the war (PH, Doolittle Raid, Flag Raising on Suribachi, etc) IMO cannot be underestimated. The most striking aspect of the raid to the Japanese was the fact that it was carried out by army medium bombers, not naval aircraft as might have been expected.

And although Yamamoto had his eye on Midway prior to the raid, there was dissension in the Japanese ranks as to what their next objective would be. The decision to attack the Midway/Hawai was not a done deal. A number of Admirals wanted no part of a Midway operation. The Doolittle raid effectively ended the discussion.

As Captain Kameto Kuroshima, a senior Japanese staff officer under Rear Admiral Matome Ugaki, stated at the time, "the Doolittle Raid passed like a shiver over Japan". This sentiment was probably shared by many Japanese who were repeatedly told that Japan was invincible.

TO
 
With respect to youall, because we are all speculating, I believe that it was stupid and an example of politicians meddling in military affairs. My uncle was in CA25 on that raid and if he had been killed or if I had a father on Lexington who was killed becuse BigE and Hornet weren't at Coral Sea, I would be even more convinced. Unfortunately, I never asked my uncle about his opinion of the raid because while he was alive I had not spent as much time studying the war as now and took it for granted that it was a great thing without looking at the consequences. At Coral Sea, we sank a CVL, damaged a CV and gutted the air group of another CV. Just think about what might have happened if BigE and Hornet had been there. The Raid and Coral Sea happened in the same time frame so a boost in morale would have been even more immense with a crushing victory at Coral sea.
 
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