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