Invasion of Italy Winter Line Gothic Line 1945 Spring Offensive During the Second World War, Operation Tombola was a major raid conducted by the 2 Special Air Service, under the command of SAS Major Roy Farran, and Special Operations Executive's Captain Michael Lees.

Instead, it was to be coordinated with Operation Grapeshot, 15th Army's planned Spring offensive that would end with the capitulation of Axis forces in Italy.

This caused alarm at 15th Army Group, with a reply sent "you only have to wait one week after target date...Your scheme will then be correctly time for maximum effort.

The Partisans, SOE, and SAS continued operations until 23 April, including raids against roads as Axis installations.

Just as important as the 300 or so Germans killed and 200 captured,[citation needed] was the number of Axis defenders moved from other duties to secure the area.

The BBC series Secret War narrated by Alisdair Simpson (Acorn Media) in 2011 focuses on the exploits of Roy Farran and Michael Lees in the episode "SAS Italian Job".

"Il suonatore matto" (Imprimatur 2017) also written by Matteo Incerti focused about the life of David 'mad piper' Kirkpatrick.

Incerti found documents and memory who prove that the sound of Kirkpatrick's bagpipe and the sacrifice of the three SAS soldiers killed in action (Riccomini, Bolden, Guscott) in Villa Rossi,[citation needed] made the Germans believe that Tombola was a conventional military attack, rather than a "partisan" action.