Operation Biting

Operation Biting
Part of the British raids during the Second World War

Bruneval photographed in December 1941
by the RAF, with its Würzburg radar at left
Date27–28 February 1942
Location
Bruneval, France
49°40′16″N 0°09′42″E / 49.6711°N 0.1618°E / 49.6711; 0.1618 (Bruneval Würzburg installation)
Result British victory
Belligerents
 United Kingdom  Germany
Commanders and leaders
John Frost Unknown
Units involved
 Unknown
Strength
 ~130 men[3]
Casualties and losses
  • 2 killed
  • 6 wounded
  • 6 captured[4][5]
  • 5 killed
  • 2 wounded
  • 2 captured
  • 3 missing[6]
Bruneval is located in English Channel
Bruneval
Bruneval
class=notpageimage|
The radar installation

Operation Biting, also known as the Bruneval Raid, was a British Combined Operations raid on a German coastal radar installation at Bruneval in northern France, during the Second World War, on the night of 27–28 February 1942.

Several of these installations were identified from Royal Air Force (RAF) aerial reconnaissance photographs during 1941, but the purpose and the nature of the equipment was not known. Some British scientists believed that these stations were connected with successful German attacks on RAF bombers conducting bombing raids against targets in Occupied Europe, resulting in severe losses of pilots and bombers. The scientists requested that one of these installations be raided and the technology it possessed be studied and, if possible, extracted and brought back to Britain for further examination.

Due to the extensive coastal defences erected by the Germans to protect the installation from a seaborne raid, the British believed that a commando raid from the sea would suffer heavy losses and give sufficient time for the enemy to destroy the installation. Officials decided that an airborne assault followed by seaborne evacuation would be the most practicable way to surprise the garrison of the installation, seize the technology intact, and minimise casualties to the raiding force.

On the night of 27 February, after a period of intense training and several delays due to poor weather, a company of airborne troops under the command of Major John Frost parachuted into France a few miles from the installation. The main force assaulted the villa in which the radar equipment was kept, killing several members of the German garrison and capturing the installation after a brief firefight.

An RAF technician with the force dismantled a Würzburg radar array and removed several key pieces, after which the force withdrew to the evacuation beach. The detachment assigned to clear the beach had initially failed to do so, but the German force guarding it was soon eliminated with the help of the main force. The raiding troops were picked up by landing craft, and transferred to several motor gunboats, which returned them to Britain.

The raid was entirely successful. The airborne troops suffered relatively few casualties, and the pieces of the radar they brought back, along with a captured German radar technician, allowed British scientists to understand enemy advances in radar and to create countermeasures to neutralize them.[7]

  1. ^ Frost, p. 46.
  2. ^ Millar, p. 156.
  3. ^ Harclerode, p. 210.
  4. ^ Frost, p. 59.
  5. ^ Millar, p. 181.
  6. ^ Millar, p. 187.
  7. ^ Churchill, Winston. The Hinge of Fate. Houghton Mifflin, 1950. 278.