Operation Castle became the highest-yield nuclear test series ever conducted by the United States.

Edinburgh Castle, headquarters of the fictional British Fourth Army during Operation Fortitude

During a similar operation in 1943, Operation Cockade, a fictional field army ( British Fourth Army ) had been created, head-quartered in Edinburgh Castle.

No single-stage U. S. version was tested, but the Union shot of Operation Castle, April 26, 1954, was a two-stage thermonuclear code-named Alarm Clock.

On March 1, 1954, the largest-ever U. S. nuclear test explosion, the 15-megaton Bravo shot of Operation Castle at Bikini, delivered a promptly lethal dose of fission-product fallout to more than of Pacific Ocean surface.

The effects of a moderate rain storm during an Operation Castle nuclear explosion was found to dampen, or reduce, peak pressure levels by approximately 15 % at all ranges.

Operation Dynamo took its name from the dynamo room in the naval headquarters below Dover Castle, which contained the dynamo that provided the building with electricity during the war.

Probably some talks took place at Wewelsburg Castle ; the only documented " Gruppenführer "( generals ')- meeting was held from 12 to 15 June 1941-one week before the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.

The division also gained its fourth Medal of Honor in the days following Operation Varsity, when Technical Sergeant Clinton M. Hedrick of the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment received the award posthumously after aiding in the capture of Lembeck Castle, which had been turned into a fortified position by the Germans.

Operation Castle test video

Operation Castle was considered by government officials to be a success as it proved the feasibility of deployable " dry fuel " designs for thermonuclear weapons.

AEC Authorization for Operation Castle

Operation Castle was charted to test four dry fuel designs, two wet bombs, and one smaller device.

Approval for Operation Castle was communicated to JTF-7 by Major General Kenneth D. Nichols, General Manager of the AEC, on 21 January 1954.

Operation Castle was organized into seven experiments, all but one of which were to take place at Bikini Atoll.

Operation Upshot-Knothole followed Operation Ivy and preceded Operation Castle.

The test series was notable as containing the first time an atomic artillery shell was fired ( Shot Grable ), the first two shots ( both fizzles ) by University of California Radiation Laboratory — Livermore ( now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ), and for testing out some of the thermonuclear components that would be used for the massive thermonuclear series of Operation Castle.

It was preceded by Operation Castle, and followed by Operation Wigwam.

Eisenhower and Strauss discuss Operation Castle, 1954.

Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first United States test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb, detonated on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle.

Reinhard Heydrich was killed after an attack by British trained Czechoslovak soldiers on behalf of the Czechoslovak government in exile in Operation Anthropoid, and knowledge from decoded transmissions allowed the U. S. to carry out a targeted attack, killing Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto while he was travelling by plane.

Adolf Hitler, meanwhile, was almost killed by his own officers, and survived various attempts by other persons and organizations ( such as Operation Foxley, though this plan was never put into practice ).

In 1986, U. S. President Ronald Reagan ( who survived an assassination attempt himself ) ordered the Operation El Dorado Canyon air raid on Libya in which one of the primary targets was the home residence of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

It was soon used in combat — in March 1986 against a Libyan SA-5 site in the Gulf of Sidra, and then Operation Eldorado Canyon in April.

HARM was used extensively by the United States Navy and the United States Air Force for Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War of 1991.

The occupation of these facilities in October 1943 was codenamed Operation Alacrity by the British.

The most recent overseas operation of the Navy was along the coast of Libya as part of Operation Unified Protector.

He was in command of all Allied ground forces during Operation Overlord from the initial landings until after the Battle of Normandy.

After Gott was killed flying back to Cairo Churchill was persuaded by Brooke, who by this time was Chief of the Imperial General Staff to appoint Montgomery, who had only just been nominated to replace Alexander as commander of the British ground forces for Operation Torch.

The conquest of Libya was essential for airfields to support Malta and to threaten the rear of Axis forces opposing Operation Torch.

The Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II, was fought between the United States and the Empire of Japan in the Pacific Theater of World War II, from September – November 1944 on the island of Peleliu, present-day Palau.

In 2002, it was a primary combat zone in Operation Defensive Shield, a major military offensive by the Israeli Defense Forces ( IDF ).

After the Taliban government was toppled during Operation Enduring Freedom, Rabbani returned to Kabul and served as a temporary President from November to December 20, 2001, when Hamid Karzai was chosen at the Bonn International Conference on Afghanistan.

For the next five years he and the Northern Alliance were busy fighting the Taliban until the 2001 US-led Operation Enduring Freedom in which the Taliban government was toppled.

Indeed, the final German blitzkrieg operation in the west, Operation Wacht am Rhein, was planned to take place during poor weather which grounded Allied aircraft.

By the summer of 1944 the reversal of fortune was complete and Operation Bagration saw Soviet forces inflict crushing defeats on Germany through the aggressive use of armour, infantry and air power in combined strategic assault, known as deep operations.

Germany's last offensive on its Western front, Operation Wacht am Rhein, was an offensive launched towards the vital port of Antwerp in December 1944.

Many historians now hold the position that blitzkrieg was not a military theory, and the campaigns conducted by the German military in 1939 to circa, 1942 ( with the exception of Operation Barbarossa ) were improvised invasions put together and modified at the last moment and therefore was not a proper military strategy.

It was only after the Battle of France German thinking reverted to the possibility of a blitzkrieg method for the Balkan Campaign and Operation Barbarossa.

* 1965 – Vietnam War: Operation Starlite begins – United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.

* 2010 – Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams crossing the border to Kuwait.

* 1988 – The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.

* 1994 – In a U. S. friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people.

During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly of material containing chemical herbicides and defoliants mixed with jet fuel in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, as part of Operation Ranch Hand.

United States Air Force records show that at least 6, 542 spraying missions took place over the course of Operation Ranch Hand.

During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly of chemical herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, as part of the aerial defoliation program known as Operation Ranch Hand.

* French forces: troops sent within the framework of Operation Unicorn and under UN mandate ( United Nations Operation in Côte d ' Ivoire ), 3000 men in February 2003 and 4600 in November 2004 ;

For instance during Operation Enduring Freedom the United States attacked targets of very low monetary value with cruise missiles, which led many to question the efficiency of the weapon.

Image: US forces Operation Enduring Freedom. jpg | United States Army Special Forces on horseback with the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, which frequently used horses as military transport.

In August 1962, after some unsuccessful operations by the US to overthrow the Cuban regime ( Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose ), the Cuban and Soviet governments secretly began to build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles ( MRBMs and IRBMs ) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States.

While retaining his professorship at Duke after the beginning of World War II, Linebarger began serving as a second lieutenant of the United States Army, where he was involved in the creation of the Office of War Information and the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board.

The UN reacted quickly and established the United Nations Operation in the Congo ( ONUC ).

He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe ; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942 – 43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944 – 45, from the Western Front.

* 1998 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Operation Desert Fox – The United States and United Kingdom bomb targets in Iraq.

* 1972 – Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.

* 1945 – World War II: The United Kingdom and Canada commence Operation Veritable to occupy the west bank of the Rhine.

When the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to US authorities and to disband al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in which teams of American and British special forces worked with commanders of the United Front ( Northern Alliance ) against the Taliban.

Following the war, von Braun and other leading German scientists were relocated to the United States to work directly for the U. S. Army through Operation Paperclip, developing the IRBMs, ICBMs, and launchers.