Operation Bigamy was a raid during the Second World War by the Special Air Service

Special Air Service

Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...

 in September 1942. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant colonel

Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...

 David Stirling

David Stirling

Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling, DSO, DFC, OBE was a Scottish laird, mountaineer, World War II British Army officer, and the founder of the Special Air Service.-Life before the war:...

 and supported by the Long Range Desert Group

Long Range Desert Group

The Long Range Desert Group was a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army during the Second World War. The commander of the German Afrika Corps, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, admitted that the LRDG "caused us more damage than any other British unit of equal strength".Originally called...

. The force were to destroy the harbour and storage facilities at Benghazi

Benghazi

Benghazi is the second largest city in Libya, the main city of the Cyrenaica region , and the former provisional capital of the National Transitional Council. The wider metropolitan area is also a district of Libya...

 and raid the airfield at Benina

Benina

Benina is a Basic People's Congress administrative division of Benghazi, Libya.It contains the Benina International Airport....

 in Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

. The raid was part of a deception plan for the much larger raid on Tobruk

Tobruk

Tobruk or Tubruq is a city, seaport, and peninsula on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near the border with Egypt. It is the capital of the Butnan District and has a population of 120,000 ....

, Operation Agreement

Operation Agreement

Operation Agreement consisted of a series of ground and amphibious operations carried out by British, Rhodesian and New Zealand forces on German and Italian-held Tobruk on 13 September 1942, during the Second World War. A Special Interrogation Group, fluent in German, also took part in missions...

. Operation Bigamy was a failure the raiding force was discovered at a road block on route by an Italian reconnaissance unit and Stirling decided to withdraw.