'Avocet' was the British undertaking by the Special Operations Executive to reinforce 'Osprey' in the Stavanger area of German-occupied Norway, organise sabotage cells along l... Read More

'Avonmouth' was a British and French unrealised plan for a landing at Narvik in the far north of Norway to support the Norwegian forces in the area should the Germans launch a... Read More

'Avre' was an Allied special forces operation to parachute a four-man team into the Ariège area of German-occupied France to establish liaison with the local resistance force... Read More

'AW' (i) was a British naval undertaking to lay a defensive minefield in the Wash (5 July 1940). , The ships involved were the coastal minelayers Plover and Dutch Willem van d... Read More

'AW' (ii) was the designation of Allied local tanker convoys (together with a numerical suffix) plying the route from Aruba to Curaçao in the Netherlands West Indies, and as ... Read More

'Axehead' (i) was an Allied unrealised plan for the seizure of the ports of Le Havre and Rouen in northern France, and also the establishment of an air-head on the eastern ban... Read More

'Axehead' (ii) was an Allied unrealised plan to seize bridges over the Seine river in German-occupied northern France and so facilitate the north-eastward advance of General S... Read More

'Axiom' was an Allied unrealised scheme for the recapture of the island of Sumatra in the Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies, and also for the subsequent recapture of M... Read More

'Axtell' was a pair of Allied naval deception undertakings, of which neither was implemented, to facilitate the passage of convoys between the UK in the west and India and Aus... Read More

This was a US pair of airborne operations by the Office of Strategic Services to provide aid and to support Italian partisan forces operating against the Germans in the area t... Read More

'B' (i) was an Italian unrealised naval minelaying operation designed to protect the approaches to Benghazi harbour in Italian North Africa (12/14 October 1941)., The operatio... Read More

'B' (ii) was the Japanese seizure of the island of Borneo in the British and Dutch East Indies (16 December 1941/1 April 1942)., Measuring some 600 miles (970 km) in length an... Read More

'B' (iii) was the Japanese seizure of Burma (15 January/31 May 1942)., Burma came under British control in 1886, and as a country has a population which is very diverse in eth... Read More

'B' (iv) was an Italian convoy operation from Naples in southern Italy to Bizerte in the Vichy French North African colony of Tunisia (30 November/3 December 1942)., Departing... Read More

The 'B-Linie' was a German defensive line on the Eastern Front for Generaloberst Karl-Adolf Hollidt’s 6th Army of Generaloberst Josef Harpe’s Heeresgruppe 'A' about 14 mil... Read More

The 'B-Programm' was the German revised version of the 'A-Programm' of weapons development and manufacture for the army in light of the requirements which were expected after ... Read More

'BA' (i) was the designation of Allied convoys (together with a numerical and sometime a literal suffix) plying the route between Bombay, India, and any of the ports in the R... Read More

'BA' (ii) was an Italian unrealised naval plan to intercept and destroy a British naval force in the Mediterranean (summer 1941)., When Italy entered World War II on the Axis ... Read More

'Baboon' was a British naval reconnaissance of Phuket island off the west coast of Thailand to assess possible beaches for amphibious landings that would pave the way for the ... Read More

'Backbone' was a British unrealised contingency plan for an amphibious landing to take the Tangier and Ceuta area of Spanish Morocco during 'Torch' (late 1942)., Never fully f... Read More

'Backchat' was a British special forces reconnaissance by a two-man canoe crew of the Small Scale Raiding Force of the beach at Anse de St Martin on the coast of the Cotentin ... Read More

'Backdoor' was a British naval operation against S-boote making forays into British waters (?). ... Read More

'Backhander' was the US seizure of Cape Gloucester, at the western end of New Britain in the Bismarck islands group, by Major General William H. Rupertus’s 1st Marine Divisi... Read More

'Backside' was a British sub-operation within 'Ironclad' and the subsequent conquest of Madagascar (September 1942). ... Read More

'Backstage' was a British operation to infiltrate a secret mission into Bulgaria (?). ... Read More

'BAF' was the designation of Allied fast troopship convoys (together with a numerical suffix) plying the route from Bombay, India, to Aden, and as such reciprocals of the 'ABF... Read More

'Baffle' was an Allied unrealised plan, developed by the commanders-in-chief of the Mediterranean theatre, for the creation of a major air base at Zadar in Yugoslavia (Decembe... Read More

'Bagration' was the Soviet strategic offensive, more formally known as the 'Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation', of the summer of 1944 by the forces in Belorussia and n... Read More

'Bajadere' was a German sabotage mission in India by elements of the Legion Freies Indien under the auspices of the Abwehr intelligence service (late 1942)., The Legion Freies... Read More

'Baker Roger' was a US naval operation to intercept and sink three German blockade-running ships in the South Atlantic (1/5 January 1944)., From the middle of November 1943 Re... Read More

'Balder' was a US semi-clandestine air operation in the northern part of neutral Sweden (1943/1945)., The celebrated polar aviation pioneer Bernd Balchen, who had dual Norwegi... Read More

'Balderdash' was a British unrealised deception plan to lure a substantial portion of the German navy’s surface strength into a major battle (April/May 1942)., The plan, whi... Read More

'Baldhead' (i) was an Allied programme of landings from Free Dutch submarines to deliver agents of the Special Operations Executive on the coast of the German-occupied Netherl... Read More

'Baldhead' (ii) was a British operation against the Japanese-occupied Andaman islands group in the Bay of Bengal (19 January/21 March 1943)., It was on about 23 March 1942 tha... Read More

'Baldur' was one of several German convoy operations associated with a major evacuation effort in the Black Sea to remove the remnants of the 17th Army (5/12 May 1944)., Despi... Read More

'Balkanschlucht' was a German operation against the partisan forces of Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslav II Assault Corps and the Italian 'Venezia' Partisan Division (latterly Gene... Read More

'Balkis' (i) was an Allied special forces raid by Lieutenant Colonel Georges Régis Bouvet’s French commando unit, with support from the Office of Strategic Services, on the... Read More

'Balkis II' was an Allied special forces raid by a French commando unit, with support from the Office of Strategic Services, on the small Italian island of Pianosa in the Tusc... Read More

'Ballast' (i) was a British sub-operation within the unimplemented 'Backbone' (i) for the further support of Malta (November 1942). ... Read More

'Ballast' (ii) was a US unrealised sub-operation within 'Blackthorn' to establish a force in Spanish North Africa (November 1942). ... Read More

'Balli Kombetar' was a German undertaking first to establish and then to expand an Albanian force able to assume security duties on the route linking Tirana with Bitola, via E... Read More

'Ballonet' was a British political and military mission into the Trento and Adige regions of northern Italy (1944/45). ... Read More

'Balloon' was a British plan for the defence of Basra on the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the extreme south of Iraq during the Anglo-Iraq War (spring 1941)., Iraq lay in the area... Read More

'Balsam' (i) was the US delivery of ground forces by tank landing craft inside the Onorisi Pass in the Munda area of New Georgia island in the Solomon islands group (14 July 1... Read More

'Balsam' (ii) was a British naval programme of carrierborne photo-reconnaissance and attack missions flown in preparation for 'Zipper' and other operations planned for this pe... Read More

Th 'Baltic Strategic Defensive Operation' was the Soviet strategic defensive operation, otherwise known as the 'Lithuanian and Latvian Strategic Defensive Operation', undertak... Read More

The 'Baltic Strategic Offensive Operation' was the Soviet strategic campaign against the German forces in the region of the Baltic states during late summer and autumn of 1944... Read More

'Bamberg' was a German operation against partisans in the area of Bobruysk in the Belorussian region of the German-occupied western USSR (26 March/6 April 1942)., Undertaken i... Read More

'Bambi' was the Allied undertaking to lay the PLUTO pipeline from the south coast of the UK to Normandy in the aftermath of 'Overlord' (June 1944). ... Read More

'Bambino' was the US continuation of its supposed threat to the Kurile islands group, off the northern coast of the Japanese home islands, from bases in the Aleutian islands g... Read More