Tales of derring-do: Author Sir Max Hastings can turn historical accounts into gripping adventure yarns. Photo: Awakening/Getty Images
Adolf Hitler was, to put it in the words of my kindly mother, not a very nice man. In other words, he was a brutal monster.
The reason I feel the need to state this brain-numbingly obvious fact is because some of the things I’m about to say about Hitler’s army out on the battlefield may be perceived as not entirely oppositional to the man and his lunatic cause.
But with a sort of grudging respect, one must admit the Nazi war machine was as effective as it was ruthless. In the Second World War it taught us a new way to wage war so effectively that the rest of the world had to unite to stop it.
And part of this effectiveness was technology: for a time, the Nazis had some of the finest minds in chemistry, biology and engineering working on newer, more effective ways to win on the battlefield. And as the Allies slowly began to pay the respect German wartime technology deserved, they also realised that one of the key aspects to the war effort had to be understanding and undermining said technology.
Which brings us to the crux of this week’s book, Operating Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler’s Radar by Max Hastings.
Hastings is a respected author, journalist and editor who has more than 30 books to his credit. Most of his books are about the new and spectacular ways human beings dream up to kill each other in the name of king and country, and this one slots into his canon quite nicely.
In this case, Hastings has chosen the subject of the British army’s daring and successful attempt to steal objects vital to understanding the Nazis radar installations.
The concept of radar was almost brand-new in World War II, and it had revolutionised warfare. Being able to not only detect incoming forces before they were visible over the horizon but to track potential targets from a similar distance was nothing short of invaluable. When the British came to the sudden realisation that maybe, just maybe, the Nazis were so devastatingly effective in their countermeasures against English bombing flights in German-occupied territory because they might be relying on new technology, plans were put into motion to understand how it worked in order to counteract its effectiveness.
Operation Biting was born.
Mostly conducted by the Royal Air Force, Biting was the raid on the Nazi radar installation that had popped up in Bruneval on the northern coast of France. Proposed by British scientist Dr RV Jones, the raid would ideally result in the capture of key critical components of Nazi radar machinery, allowing the British to learn its workings.
Churchill was desperate to bloody the nose of the Germans in the wake of the thorough havoc they had wreaked on British soil, and so he approved of the daring Special Forces raid into France. This is the point in history at which the book picks up.
Hastings goes into extensive, some might say agonising, detail on not only the raid itself, but the key players in its conception and execution. The thing about historical accounts such as these is, if not handled properly, they can be as dry as the proverbial tea biscuit.
Fortunately, Hastings does not do his subject matter this disservice: he correctly recognises how thrilling an operation this was, and how colourful the supporting cast of characters. So, instead of steering us into history textbook territory, Hastings gives us something akin to an adventure story, a tale of larger-than-life British historical figures and their extraordinary derring-do.
Another caveat in non-fiction with such a specific subject matter is that if one is not specifically interested, one might find oneself chewing on that tea biscuit again.
Here, unfortunately, Hastings did not succeed in transcending any boundaries: If you don’t care about World War II, you won’t care about this book. While it is well-written and excellently presented, doing very well to make reams of information succinct and accessible, it is still very much a book grounded in one specific aspect of human history. And if that aspect doesn’t float one’s boat, so to speak, I would advise against picking this book up.
However, if you do have even an inkling of interest, you could do a lot worse than read this book. Hastings has a writing style that presents facts in a way that makes you want to consume them by the dozen and intersperses enough anecdotes and dry British wit to keep things interesting.
Much is done to establish pathos for our protagonists, and you actually find yourself cheering for these unflappable Brits and their unwavering determination to punch Jerry in the mouth. (One does one’s cheering internally, of course. Stiff upper lip and all that …)
And in terms of establishing schadenfreude for our antagonists, well, Hastings hardly has to try. It’s almost cheating when the villains in your book are some of the most reviled figures in human history.
All in all, this book is an entertaining account of a thrilling episode in Second World War history. A recommended read for those who are interested.
Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler’s Radar is published by William Collins.