• Wikimedia Commons
    7 of 10

    OPERATION JERICHO

    Mission code names—particularly those of covert missions—aren’t really supposed to have any relationship to the actual mission itself, to lessen the chances that enemy intelligence will work out the nature of the plan. Operation Jericho, an RAF raid that was all about causing walls to go tumbling down, violated this rule, but due to the unprecedented audacity of the mission German intelligence could never have guessed what the raid was actually about.

    A number of French resistance fighters and spies were due to be executed by firing squad in the exercise yard of Amiens Prison and there was no way that British intelligence could delay or cancel the executions with their men on the ground.

    The solution: send a force of de Havilland Mosquito long-range fighter-bombers howling across Europe at treetop level to blow a gigantic hole in the prison wall and smash the guards quarters. As crazy as it sounded, the plan was a success, and was even reported live by a BBC reporter riding along with the mission.