Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar

In this enthralling history, internationally bestselling author Max Hastings recounts the odds-defying Operation Biting, a 1942 parachute commando raid on Northern France to steal vital components of German intelligence—one of the most thrilling British commando raids of World War II, and one of the most successful.

In February 1942, RAF intelligence was baffled by a newly identified radar network on the coast of Nazi-occupied Europe, codenamed Würzburg. British intelligence proposed an assault to capture key components. Incredibly brave agents of the French Resistance risked their lives to probe the German defenses on the Normandy coast. Then a company of Airborne forces were dropped into France in the dead of night amid heavy snow. Launching their attack, the allied soldiers dismantled the German’s radar, and after three nail-biting hours and a fierce battle with Wehrmacht defenders, escaped in the nick of time using landing-craft that carried them back across the stormy seas to Portsmouth.

Operation Biting retells this dramatic operation through a gallery of amazing characters from Winston Churchill, who promoted the raid, to Lord Mountbatten, who commanded Combined Operations, to the brave unsung commandos who fought their way through enemy territory.

A cliffhanger of a story that ratchets the suspense to the last page, Operation Biting sheds new light on an exciting and little-known chapter of the Second World War.

“[Hastings’s] incisive account of the standoff between the US and Russia has chilling and timely lessons 60 years on . . . . Abyss provides chastening lessons on how easily things can spiral out of control but also how catastrophe can be averted.” - Guardian on The Abyss

“Monumental. . . . Hastings deserves enormous credit for helping us, half a century after the peak of the fighting, to see beyond old arguments about which side was right. What is visible when the blinders come off is indeed no pretty sight.” - New York Times Book Review on Vietnam

“Fascinating and immensely readable . . . a fine account, rich in human drama and tragedy, told by a historian whose new books are always to be welcomed. Operation Chastise is no exception.” - Wall Street Journal on Operation Chastise