Wow! So many great responses and nice support of opinions. These are good examples of raid carried out by many different types of units but like someone said "any operation carried out successfully is a great op...".
I would discount parachute assault on Eben Emal as being just that, an airborne assault preceding an invasion and not a raid. Also, airborne units are not true special operations units (I hope not to offend any one here, but they're just light infantry with a high esprit de corps and a different way to get to work).
I would have to chose the Son Tay raid as being one of the most interesting due to all the factors from planning a joint service operation and in getting the Raider force to their target and the raid on Entebbe as being one of the most imaginative (I see ghosts of Sterling's SAS here...).
The deal on Son Tay is that it was one of the first actual joint service operation that was successful across the board (even though it failed to bring the POWs home due to poor intelligence and group think...). It was put together and executed in a short amount of time with some of the best talent in the military at the time (Simons, Manor, Sydnor, Meadows...). They set a precedence for todays SOCOM.
I would go on but I'm at my real job so I will leave my .02 cents here... Will continue later...
Good discussion though...
