Operation Centaur

'Centaur' was a British unrealised special forces raid, posited on the use of a force of between 500 and 700 commandos, on the hydro-electric plant which supplied power to an important aluminium smelting facility on the shore of the Glomfjord, in the northern part of the western coast of German-occupied Norway (June 1942).

The concept had first emerged as 'Audacity' in February 1942, with the operation to be undertaken by a force of 500 to 700 commandos delivered to Norway by surface ship, and had been rejected. The basic plan was later revived in June, on an altogether smaller scale, as 'Centaur' using a small party of commandos who would travel through the mountains to attack the hydro-electric plant, and as finally revised and implemented as 'Musketoon'.