The operation (Op EICHE or Oak) to free Mussolini at Gran Sasso was hardly covert - save in its planning stages where Skorzeny (who was Waffen SS) was required to wear Luftwaffe uniform.
At Gran Sasso, Skorzeny was leading a force comprising men from his Friedenthal Battalion and Fallschirmjager (paratroops) from 1st Kompanie, 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, (the Fallschirm - Lehr Battalion), under the command of Oberleutnant Georg von Berlepsch. In WW2 Germany, the paratroops were part of the Luftwaffe and the mission was under the overall command of (Luftwaffe) General Student.
They were inserted by glider (twelve DFS-232) and Mussolini was extracted by (a heavily overloaded) Storch flown by Haupt Heinrich Gerlach, General Student's personal pilot. The Storch was not designed to carry three men (Gerlach, Mussolini and Skorzeny - who was a big man himself) and Mussolini's luggage...
Skorzeny was awarded the Knights Cross as was Haupt Gerlach.
A photo of Gerlach is at
http://www.3squadron.org.au/sasso.htm
and there are plenty of accounts of the Gran Sasso affair available via Google.