Operation Biting
The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar
Max Hastings 2024 | West Slope 940.5412 HASTINGS
This is a book about people and relationships and inferred attitudes. Not about geography and timing and technology, the aspects that interest me most.
- incomplete maps p135, first photo pages, p159, p192
p49 Maj. General Frederick "Boy" Browning, married to Daphne Du Maurier in 1932 after Browning inheritance lost in 1929 crash
p249 R.V. Jones 1979 memoir Most Secret War at PSU, $10 Powells Burnside $10 Addall
The Appendices are the most interesting:
p261 Appendix I: Major John Frost's Orders for Operation Biting February 1942
- p271 Appendix II: Order of Battle for C Company 2nd Parachute Battalion 28 February 1942
- 3 groups, 11 teams, dropped 0014 to 0039
- equipment: 5 #38 wireless sets, 2 #18 wireless sets, 2 mine detectors, 5 antitank mines, 3 Trolleys, 2 Eureka beacons
p279 Appendix III: Maj. Gen. Frederick Browning's After-action report
- p297 Extracts from the Report of the Telecommunications Research Establishment on the German Technology Captured at Bruneval
- single mobile trailer, 2.8 meter dish, 50 yards from edge of 300 foot cliff
- power from French 50Hz mains, probably 175 volts
- T/R box, Modulator box, Receiver IF Amplifier box
- 2 microsecond pulse, relay adjustable to 1.5 microseconds
- bias voltage 800 volts?
- Telefunken LS50 and RV12P2000 and LS180 (transmitter) "valves", micromesh construction
- Loewe Radio 2LB7/15 OPTA' 2 inch CRT
- Frequency 750 MHz, pulse rate 250 Hz
- 10 kV 210 average watts input, 53 average watts output
- Aluminum castings
- diagrams and schematics omitted, difficult to understand description
- Estimated max range 40 to 60km for 4 m2 cross section
- 12W Estimated average radiated power for jammer
- Nothing novel, lags behind British RDF, mechanically very sturdy/strong
- p329 References, best available resources but many details remain obschre