10 Historic Military Code Names

Zee Media Bureau
Nov 24, 2023

Operation Rolling Thunder (1965–1968)

The U.S. code name for the extended aerial bombardment campaign against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Operation Barbarossa (1941)

Hitler's ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union saw the Wehrmacht's retreat, causing 775,000 German casualties, 800,000 Soviet deaths, and six million Soviet soldiers wounded or captured.

Operation Red Dawn (2003)

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein captured by US forces on December 13, 2003, near Tikrit in an eight-month operation named after the film 'Red Dawn' (1984).

Operation Frequent Wind (1975)

In the closing days of the Vietnam War, over 7,000 people, including American civilians and at-risk Vietnamese, were evacuated by helicopter from Saigon in Operation Frequent Wind.

Operation Vittles (1948–1949)

The Cold War Berlin Blockade, where the Soviet Union cut Western Allies' access to Berlin, led to the Berlin Airlift, code-named Vittles.

Operation Anthropoid (1942)

Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of top Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich in Prague on May 27, 1942, resulted in Heydrich's death on June 4 during World War II.

Operation Danube (1968)

In 1968, Operation Danube saw a massive invasion of Czechoslovakia by 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops, quashing the Prague Spring reforms and consolidating Communist Party control.

Operation Urgent Fury (1983)

Code-named Operation Urgent Fury, the U.S. invasion of Grenada began on October 25, 1983, swiftly leading to American military occupation.

Operation Pied Piper (1939–1940)

The evacuation of around 1.5 million civilians, including many children, in Britain during the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, relocating them to safer rural areas.

Operation Gaff (1944)

A 1944 Special Air Service (SAS) mission to capture or kill German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in occupied France, was aborted as Rommel had been evacuated due to prior injuries.

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