Operation biting

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Würzburg radar at Château Bruneval

The Operation Biting was a commando of the British Army during the Second World War . From February 27 to 28, 1942, important parts of a German " Würzburg " radio measuring device set up near Bruneval ( 49 ° 40 ′ 16.1 ″  N , 0 ° 9 ′ 42.6 ″  E ) in France were captured and brought to England . The evaluation revealed important information about the state of German decimeter - radar technology .

Based on this knowledge, in July 1943, during the air raids of " Operation Gomorrah " against Hamburg, the Würzburg equipment available there was effectively disrupted for the first time, severely hampering night fighters and air defense .

The operation was planned with the help of members of the French Resistance , who described the exact location and the surrounding area to the British. On the recommendation of Lord Mountbatten , the combined warfare staff decided that an airborne operation should not be carried out, rather than a sea landing. After the mission, the airborne troops were to be brought back to Great Britain via the English Channel by landing craft of the Royal Navy .

Only one RAF member, the engineer and flight sergeant (Feldwebel) CWH Cox, took part in the operation as a radar specialist. Before the company tried to transfer him to the army, because if he were captured, the Germans would immediately assume that the only air force rank must be a radar specialist. Due to bureaucratic hurdles, he was not even allowed to be transferred for the short duration of the assignment.

Operation Biting was the first attack by the British 1st Paratrooper Brigade , carried out by 120 men from C Company of 2nd Battalion . Units of the British 12th Command were prepared to protect the evacuation by sea.

The Thruxton from launched paratroopers jumped around midnight in small groups along with six other electronics engineers from Whitley bombers from. The command of the task force was Major John Frost , who later became known near Arnhem during Operation Market Garden .

The attack came as a complete surprise to the Germans. After three German machine-gun posts had been put out of action, the Allied experts were able to capture the most important electronic parts, including the frequency-determining components. The antenna could be released by sawing through the bracket. Altogether the transmitter, the receiver, the pulse device and the intermediate frequency amplifier could be captured, although part of the parachute troops had been drifted away somewhat and thus the dismantling party only had 10 minutes instead of the planned 30 minutes.

Percy Pickard , commander of No. 51 Squadron RAF, inspects a German helmet after Operation Biting

The evacuation was delayed under heavy German fire. It took the commandos an hour to counterattack.

Two British people were killed and four more captured during the operation. The British, in turn, took three prisoners, including the assistant operator of the Würzburg device, who revealed secret information to them. It quickly became apparent that the system worked in a narrow frequency range around 560 MHz ( wavelength 53.6 cm), which could only be changed within small limits. A positive feature was the sophisticated and clean design. A riveted nameplate revealed the year of manufacture 1939, which meant that the Germans were leaders in the field of decimeter wave radar technology at that time .

As a consequence of the commando operation, all German radar stations in the occupied areas were soon massively fortified, mostly with extensive barbed wire obstacles , which meant that the stations were now much more easily discovered by the Allied aerial reconnaissance than the Würzburg parabolic mirrors that were barely recognizable in photos .

The British, for their part, relocated the British TRE telecommunications testing department from Swanage to the safe Malvern in the county of Worcestershire, as it was feared that the Germans could now also set up such a commando operation on the important TRE.

Based on the knowledge about the technology of the Würzburg device, the Allies were now able to take effective disruptive measures. For the first time, leading British Pathfinder aircraft and the leading machines of the bomber stream threw in Operation Gomorrah , the heavy attacks on Hamburg in July 1943, to disrupt the German radar devices " Window " strips made of tin foil with a length of 26.8 cm (= half Wavelength of the Würzburg radar). As a result, however, ways were quickly found to eliminate the interference caused by the "window" strips .

Web links

Commons : Operation Biting  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell