During World War II, Operation Gauntlet was a Combined Operations raid by Canadian troops, with British Army logistics support and Free Norwegian Forces servicemen on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, 600 miles south of the North Pole, from 25 August to 3 September 1941.
The objective was to destroy the rich coal mines there together with associated equipment and stores, which it was correctly assumed the Germans intended to make use of. These mines on Norwegian territory were owned and operated by Norway (at Longyearbyen) and by the Soviet Union (at Barentsburg) and both governments agreed to their destruction and the evacuation of their nationals.
Read more about Operation Gauntlet: Background, Preliminary Visit, Allied Forces, The Operation, German Convoy
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)