The plot (and plot is definitely the correct word) between Britain, France, and Israel to launch a secret war to resolve the Suez Crisis has to be one of the most baffling, convoluted, and cockamamie ideas I've come across in modern history.

It reads like bad fiction.

After Nasser nationalized the Canal the British and French negotiated, in secret, for Israel to launch an invasion of Egypt. Then, the British and French, under the guise of enforcing an armistice, would swoop in and re-occupy the canal ostensibly as a buffer zone but really just so that they could take the canal.

The French, apparently, outted the plan when they accidentally announced the Israeli invasion over the radio before it happened.

When Eisenhower found out what happened he was apparently furious that he hadn't been consulted (not that he would have approved) and found the whole thing to be absurd. Britain launching a secret plot to take back a canal that led to an empire they no longer owned. It also made provided cover for the Soviets to crush the Hungarian Revolution and pushed the Arab states closer to the Soviet Bloc so it was a major setback in the cold war.

An unmitigated disaster and an absurd one at that.

I'm not sure if Operation Entebbe fits into this discussion as a secret military campaign, because it was a special forces rescue mission, but it did take place in a foreign nation and there were contacts with enemy forces, so I'm going to talk about it here. For me, it's the quintessential rescue mission and secret operation, and the details make for one of the most exciting tales I can imagine.

Setting the scene, the Operation was necessitated by certain background events taking place in none other than Uganda.

It began when the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) renounced hijacking of aircraft as counterproductive, following the PFLP's expulsion from Jordan and the disastrous failed hijacking of the Sabena flight. Some within the movement were unhappy with this, including leader George Hadash's deputy, named Wadia Haddad. Haddad proceeded to form the PFLP-SOG (Special Operations Group), the group which would perpetrate the hijacking of flights. Operation Uganda, as it was known, was intended to grab headlines around the world, and began on June 27, 1976. Fayez Abdul-Rahim Jaber, one of the PFLP's founders, and Jayel Naji al-Arjam, Deputy Chief of the SOG's foreign relations department, boarded a flight in Athens that had come from Tel Aviv, and was bound for Paris. Also on the flight, Wilfried Böse and his former girlfriend Brigitte Kuhlmann (two West Germans travelling with South American passports) were associated with the operation and also travelling under pseudonyms (the first two mentioned were travelling under fake names themselves).

Athens airport security was notoriously lax, so they managed to smuggle on grenades, weapons, and anything else they needed. Seven minutes after departure, the terrorists burst onto the flight deck, Bose holding a pistol and a hand grenade. In the first hijacking of Air France history, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked and redirected to Uganda, where it landed around 3:15AM on June 28, 1976. Hostages were held in the dilapidated Old Terminal, since the Entebbe Airport where it landed had recently had a new terminal added during renovations, and Ugandan soldiers (due to Idi Amin's support for the terrorist cause) guarded the hostages.

BBC Reports told the world, and the Israeli government, that the hostages were confined in the Old Terminal at Entebbe Airport. Despite a lack of orders to do so, planning for a military rescue mission began based on old blueprints of the terminal obtained from the Israeli civil engineering company Solel Boneh (who had built the terminal the hostages were in). The IAF informally considered a rescue mission, concluding that it could only work if the Israelis used a C-130, since it was the only plane large enough to carry the equipment and the people. Two KC-130 planes were considered as options, as were other Hercules transport aircraft. However, with all this the problem of refuelling remained. The loads would be heavy, and it was a distance of some 2,200 miles each way.

The French began the negotiations, finding the terrorists demanding (in public broadcasts to the world through Uganda radio) the release of 53 terrorists held in 5 countries (40 in Israel). The French government would have to pay $5 million for the ransom of the Airbus plane itself. A deadline was set for 2:00PM on July 1 to comply with the demands (Israeli time was used).

Skepticism persisted about the idea of a military operation, but the considerations included the most serious idea of a joint operation between two special forces groups (Sayeret Matkal and Shayetet 13), who would parachute into Lake Victoria, use inflatable boats to covertly reach the shore, advance through a crocodile-infested swamp for a half-mile to the Old Terminal, then kill the terrorists and surrender to the Ugandan authorities. Other suggestions included hiring a Kenyan boat to get the troops across Lake Victoria for the assault, as well as trying to take the whole airport via large-scale paradrop, and the fourth was to fly in Sayeret Matkal forces dressed as the prisoner terrorists on a civilian aircraft.

All of these plans were longshots, relying on Ugandan cooperation in not helping the terrorists, and the fourth relied on the idea of taxing Israeli resources to such a huge degree it was unlikely it could be organized. At any rate, they needed details on the terminal before they picked a plan of any kind, so a Mossad operative was tasked with it. All he did was fly from London to Nairobi in Kenya, rented a light aircraft, flew to Entebbe, and then told the control tower he had a technical malfunction and had to perform some air roundabouts. This was done on July 2 (why it was after the deadline, I explain later).

They bought it, and he proceeded to take pictures. He then said "Sorry, I can't land", and flew back to Nairobi, from which he sent the pictures to Israel.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin dismissed all four plans presented above, however, saying they would lead to an Israeli "Bay of Pigs" at best. He ordered them to continue exploring options, and a team was sent to Kenya to seek the help of the government there in both intelligence and in resolving the crisis. A test drop, in the meantime, was conducted by C-130 in Lake Victoria, but the inflatable boats exploded as soon as they made contact with the water, and the Kenyan government effectively nixed the boat plan since it said it wouldn't allow action against Uganda to originate in its territory. However, the unpredictable and irrational nature (as perceived by Rabin) of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin convinced Rabin military options were the only way to resolve this. On June 30th, a goodwill gesture was made by Amin and the terrorists, who sent 47 gentiles (mostly French nationals) to Orly Airport in Paris. All the hostages were visited by French and Israeli security/embassy forces, and were happy to divulge all the information they had, and a former French military officer helped in particular with all the details.

By July 1, the only plan remaining was the C-130 rescue plan, but the refueling idea was still uncertain. In the meantime, another 101 gentiles were released on board an Air France aircraft, with Jews and Israelis (though Jews may have been released, this is unclear by some sources) being kept. Roughly 100 were still left as hostages, 94 Jews (mostly Israelis) and 12 Air France crew. The pressure by the families to acquiesce to the demands was huge, and a cabinet vote unanimously voted in favor of negotiating (against Israel's policy) around 9AM (deadline was for 2PM that day). The decision reached the hijackers with 90 minutes to go to the deadline, and they quickly extended the deadline publicly (again, over Radio Uganda) to 2PM on July 4, thanks to the response and due to Idi Amin's urging.

The rescue mission planning hit a new stage. The plan, now, was to send 4 C-130 Hercules aircraft with compact assault teams to land at Entebbe (this would have to happen at night, in an unfamiliar airport, with precision timing, a daunting task by all accounts). But how would they travel the roughly mile-long path to the terminal from the runway? The Israelis came up with the idea of using a black Mercedes in a motorcade to imitate Amin's usual transportation. Two Land Rovers and the mercedes would be crammed into the Hercules planes. This type of quick improvisation of plans, including getting a white Mercedes which was quickly painted black, was unusual for Sayeret Matkal. They were used to weeks of planning; this had an amateurish rushed feel to it for them. Many expected it to be cancelled anyways, since it seemed so fanciful. But it wasn't, and it proceeded...but first, the refueling problem. Operation Stanley, it was called (though later renamed Operation Thunderbolt), had to deal with roughly 10,000 Ugandan troops who were no more than 22 miles away, and the troops at the airport, so they also included 4 Jeeps with mounted machine guns and light anti-tank weapons in the aircraft. A full-scale model of the Old Terminal, on July 2, was ordered to be built by the Israelis, where they'd run simulations. Wooden posts and screens and three aircraft were set aside to simulate the operation, and every detail was scrutinized and rushed and handled.

The plan originally had included refueling at Entebbe, but it seemed nearly impossible for that to happen given the fighting that would ensue, so Rabin preferred the planes would fly to Nairobi, Kenya, to try to refuel there even if the Kenyans protested. The plan was as follows:

Two Boeing 707s would be disguised as El Al flights. One would fly over the airport as an aircraft command center, relaying communications and overseeing the operations. The second would fly to Nairobi, configured as a field hospital, to await casualties. The lead C-130 would land, let out the Land Rovers and Mercedes, and 29 members of The Unit assault force. 52 paratroopers of Sayeret Tzanhanim would join on the flight, and 10 of those paratroopers were meant to lay out landing lights in case the lights of the airport were extinguished. The second C-130 would then land, with two of the armed Jeeps and the communications Jeep, along with men of Sayeret Golani and 17 paratroopers. The third would have the other two jeeps, along with another 30 men of Sayeret Golani and another vehicle. The fourth would be tasked with extracting the hostages, and two pickup trucks (with portable fuel pumps) would be included, along with 10 men who were part of the aircraft refuelling team. The men would infiltrate the airport using the motorcade, enter, quickly dispatch the terrorists before the terrorists killed hostages, and fight their way back to the planes to take off.

There's Project Merdeka which unfortunately ended up in a tragedy remembered as the Jabidah Massacre. In a nutshell: In the early 70's, Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos cooked up a plan to recruit young Moros (Filipino Muslims from the south of the archipelago,) train them, and send them to Sabah (under Malaysia's control, but has been disputed for a long time between the Philippines and Malaysia) to conduct destabilization operations, which Filipino military reinforcements would then quell, with the ultimate goal of taking control of the region when the smoke cleared.

Unfortunately, the harsh commando training did not sit well with the Moros. (Another version says they were demanding the pay they were promised, while another says they didn't like the idea of fighting people from Sabah, whom they considered kinsmen, or had close historical/tribal ties with). They mutinied, things got out of control, and they were killed by the officers.

In november 1941, Free French Admiral Muselier was ordered by De Gaulle to seize the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon from Vichy with the tiny navy he commanded. He asked the US government if he was allowed to launch an invasion (from Halifax), received a negative answer, was ordered by De Gaulle to carry on. After the islands were seized with no resistance, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull protested in a press release and called Muselier and his troops the "so-called Free French". The (American) press slammed him and he (was told to) shut up. In his account of the incident, Churchill said he never understood why Cordell Hull was so angry about it.

Well, there's the fan-favorite Pig War of 1859. An epic story of tiny little islands, territorial disputes, trespassing, pig-killing, future Civil War commanders that almost turned into a major shooting war between the United States and Great Britain.

As far as secret campaigns go, the Jacobites of 1745 likely count. It's not that Prince Charles Edward Stuart acted entirely alone, but he failed to communicate with his main supporters in Scotland before turning up--with seven men (the Men of Moidart), one ship and its crew, a handful of weapons, and a cargo of brandy. So unimpressed with this showing were they, that they actually told him to go home! [insert 'Go home Prince, you're drunk' meme here; it sort of works.]

Yet within just a couple months of this remarkably lacklustre initial response, the Prince's army had taken Edinburgh and was marching on London.*

*Historical spoilers: Then it all went up in flames six months later, spelling the end of the last large Jacobite rising.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that many of the Abwehr's attempts to infiltrate spies into Britain during World War 2 were almost comically inept - men with thick German accents and suits with Berlin tailors' labels turning up on beaches in the middle of the night.

I can't now think where I read this, so I don't know how true it is - I'd love to know more.