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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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