Combined Operations Headquarters was a department of the British War Office set up during World War II to harass the Germans on the European continent by means of raids carried out by use of combined naval and army forces. Admiral of the Fleet Roger Keyes was the first director, from 17 July 1940 to 27 October 1941, replaced first by Lord Louis Mountbatten and then Major General Robert Laycock (October 1943-1947). The main forces used by Combined Operations were the Commandos.
It comprised background staff whose job was to plan operations and to develop ideas and equipment to harass the enemy in any way possible. It also covered all those who worked with landing craft up to and including the landing ships that were used in the various amphibious operations.
The badge of Combined Operations was an eagle over a submachine gun over an anchor, reflecting the three service arms; the Royal Air Force, the British Army and the Royal Navy.
Read more about Combined Operations Headquarters: Operations, Units, Film
Famous quotes containing the words combined, operations and/or headquarters:
“Today we all speak, if not the same tongue, the same universal language. There is no one center, and time has lost its former coherence: East and West, yesterday and tomorrow exist as a confused jumble in each one of us. Different times and different spaces are combined in a here and now that is everywhere at once.”
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“What does headquarters think these guys came over here for, a sewing circle? They go up playing for keeps. Cops and robbers with rocks in the snowballs. Brass knuckles and lead pipes and a roughneck conviction they can lick any man in the world.”
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