Operation Whynot

'Whynot' was a British attack on an airfield outside Catania on the Italian island of Sicily by a party of Special Boat Section personnel in support of 'Pedestal' (8/12 August 1942).

The six-man party of the SBS’s M Section was landed in three Folboats from the submarine Una, but then found that the airfield, which accommodated a force of Junkers Ju 88 twin-engined anti-ship bombers, was also occupied by about 1,000 German troops and had to fall back and await extraction, but all the members of the British party were taken prisoner.