Municipalities of La
Poterie-Cap-d'Antifer and
Saint-Jouin-Bruneval, in the
Seine-Maritime departement,
Normandy region, France.
(49°40′16.06″N
0°09′42.60″E)
Period Covered:
27–28FEB1942
Date:
FEB-APR 2017
CaseClassification:
Location of Historic Events
StatusofCase: Case
Closed
(click to enlarge) Now & Then at the objective of
Operation "Biting":
the Nazi 'Würzburg radar station
located between the LONE HOUSE and
the sea cliff near Bruneval in
France. In the "Now-"photo,
taken at ground level, only the
terrace of the villa can be seen.
The woods in the left background in
both photo's were codenamed
RECTANGULAR.
REASON FOR INVESTIGATION Operation "Biting" was a
daring Combined Operation raid
on a Nazi radar station at
Bruneval in northern France.
In February 1942, men of the
British 1st Airborne Division
went into action for the first
time. Their target was the
'Wurzburg' radar installation at
Bruneval.
Their objective was to seize
vital radar components and to
bring them back to the United
Kingdom for inspection by
trained scientists.
The raid was a success and this
agency visited the location of
the raid 75 years later during
various commemorative functions.
SYNOPSIS:
Operation BITING, also known as
the Bruneval Raid, was the code
name given to a British Combined
Operations raid on a Nazi
coastal radar installation at
Bruneval in Northern France,
which took place on the night of
27–28FEB1942 during World War
II.
Some of these installations were
identified from Royal Air Force
(RAF) aerial reconnaissance
photographs during 1941, but
their exact purpose and the
nature of the equipment that
they possessed was not known.
Some British scientists believed
that these stations were linked
to the losses being experienced
by RAF bombers conducting
bombing raids against targets in
Nazi Occupied Europe. The
scientists requested that one of
these installations to be raided
and the technology it possessed
be studied and brought back to
Britain for further examination.
Due to the extensive coastal
defenses put up by the Nazis to
protect the installation from a
seaborne raid, it was believed
that a Commando raid from the
sea would suffer heavy losses
and give sufficient time for the
garrison at the installation to
destroy the radar set. It was
therefore decided that an
airborne assault followed by
seaborne exfiltration would be
the most practicable way to
surprise the garrison of the
installation, seize the
technology intact, and minimize
casualties to the raiding party.
On the night of 27FEB1942, after
a period of intense training and
several delays due to bad
weather, a company of airborne
troops under the command of MAJ
John Frost parachuted a few
miles from the installation. The
main force then assaulted the
villa in which close proximity
the radar equipment was
installed, killing several
members of the Nazi garrison and
capturing the installation after
a brief gun fight. An RAF
technician with the raiding
party dismantled the Würzburg
radar set and removed several
crucial pieces, and then the
force withdrew to the evacuation
beach. The team assigned to
clear the beach at first had
failed to do so, but the Nazi
force guarding it was soon
eliminated with the help of the
main force. The raiding troops
were picked up by Royal Navy
craft, then transferred to
several Motor Gun Boats which
returned them to Britain. The
raid was an overall success. The
airborne troops suffered only a
few casualties, and the pieces
of the radar they brought back,
along with a captured Nazi radar
technician, allowed British
scientists to understand enemy
development in radar and to
create countermeasures to
neutralize them.
After the end of the Battle of
France the British and Germans
had been competing in radar
technology for nearly a decade
at this point, with the Nazi
technology often at the same
level as the British or
surpassing them due to heavy
investment in radio measuring
technology. To effectively
neutralize the Würzburg system,
Jones and his team had to study
one of the systems, or at least
the more vital pieces of
technology of which the system
was composed. Fortunately for
them, one such site had recently
been located by an RAF
reconnaissance Spitfire from the
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
during a flight over part of the
French coast near Le Havre. The
site was located on a cliff top
immediately north of the village
of Bruneval, which was itself 12
miles North of Le Havre, and was
the most accessible Nazi radar
site that had been located so
far by the Allies; several other
installations were located
further inland. A request for a
raid on the Bruneval site to
capture a Nazi radar station was
passed on to Admiral Lord Louis
Mountbatten, the commander of
Combined Operations and he saw
an airborne assault as the only
viable method.
Training
“C” company spent time on
Salisbury Plain and then
travelled to Scotland where it
took training practicing night
infiltrations on landing craft
to prepare for exfiltration by
sea after raiding the Würzburg
installation. Preparation of the
mission was aided by the
creation of a scale-model of the
radar installation.
(click to enlarge) Pre-war photo of
the villa, owned by a Parisian
dentist Scale-model of the
radar installation Royal Air Force
reconnaissance photos of the
objective
It was considered that the
combination of a full moon for
visibility, and a rising tide to
allow the landing craft to
maneuver in shallow water, was
vital for the success of the
raid, which narrowed the
possible dates to a four-day
period between 24–27FEB1942.
The raid
On 27FEB1942 the weather proved
to be ideal, with clear skies
and good visibility and a full
moon which would provide
illumination for the evacuation
of the raiding force. The naval
force under Commander Cook
departed from Britain during the
afternoon, and the Whitley
transport aircraft carrying “C”
Company took off from RAF
Thruxton in the evening.
The aircraft crossed the Channel
without incident, but as they
reached the French coast they
came under heavy anti-aircraft
fire; however, none of them were
hit, and they successfully
delivered “C” Company to the
designated drop zone near the
Nazi radar station. The drop was
almost a total success, with the
majority of the raiding force
landing on the edge of the drop
zone; however, half of the
NELSON detachment landed two
miles short of the DZ. Once the
other detachments had gathered
their equipment and orientated
themselves, they moved off to
undertake their arranged tasks.
Teams JELLICO, HARDY and DRAKE
encountered no enemy opposition
as they moved towards the villa
near the radar installation, and
after surrounding the villa
Frost gave the order to open
fire with grenades and automatic
fire. One Nazi guard was killed
as he returned fire from an
upstairs window, and two more
were taken prisoner by the
airborne troops; upon
interrogation, the prisoners
revealed that the majority of
the garrison were stationed
further inland. There still
remained a substantial enemy
force in the buildings in the
small enclosure near the villa,
and this now opened fire on the
raiding force after being
alerted by the initial
firefight, killing one of the
airborne troops. The volume of
fire rapidly increased, when
enemy vehicles could be seen
moving towards the villa from
the nearby woods; this in
particular worried Frost, as the
radio sets the force had been
issued failed to work, giving
him no means of communication
with his other detachments,
including NELSON who were tasked
with clearing the evacuation
beach. Fortunately for the
British, Flight SGT Cox and
several sappers arrived at this
time and proceeded to dismantle
the radar equipment, placing the
pieces on specially designed
trolleys.
Having secured the radar
equipment and under heavy enemy
fire, MAJ Frost gave the order
for the three detachments to
withdraw to the evacuation
beach; it became apparent,
however, that the beach had not
been secured by the
under-strength NELSON detachment
when a German machine gun opened
fire on the airborne troops,
severely wounding the CSM. Frost
ordered RODNEY and the available
men of NELSON to clear the
defenses, whilst he led the
other three detachments back to
the villa, which had been
re-occupied by enemy troops.
The villa was soon cleared of
Nazi troops once more, and when
Frost returned to the beach, he
found that the machine-gun nest
had been destroyed by the mis-dropped
troops of team NELSON; avoiding
a number of enemy positions,
they had reached the beach and
attacked the machine-gun post
from the flank. By this time it
was 0215 but there was no sign
of the naval force that was to
evacuate the airborne troops.
Frost ordered NELSON to guard
the inland approaches to the
beach and then fired off an
emergency signal flare; soon
after that the naval force was
seen approaching. The original
plan for the operation had
called for two landing craft at
a time to land on the beach, but
this had never been
satisfactorily achieved during
training; instead, all six
landing craft landed at the same
time, with the covering troops
in the landing craft opening
fire on Nazis gathering at the
top of the cliff. The radar
equipment, Nazi prisoners and
the entire raiding force were
embarked and transferred to
motor gunboats for transport
back to Britain.
(click to enlarge) Areal Photograph facing South
inland indication key locations of
the raid
75th Anniversary
Commemoration in 2017 In FEB2017 the 70th
anniversary of the operation was
commemorated in the municipality
of La Poterie-Cap d’Antifer.
This agency picked up signals
that this community does not get
along well with the adjacent
community of Bruneval and that
an agreement has been settled to
commemorate the 1942 raid on
their respective territories
alternately.
For this occasion a mass jump of
all 120 soldiers of "C"
"Bruneval" Coy, 2nd Para BN was
scheduled on the same DZ as in
1942. High winds however caused
the RAF to decide to cancel the
drop at least 48 hours in
advance. This gave the
paratroopers the chance to
travel across the English
Channel to the battle area way
in advance to explore the area
of operations of the men in
their unit of 75 years earlier.
And for this agency to tag
along……
(click to enlarge)
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18192021
Visit to the Battlefield of
Operation "Biting" We arrived in the area of
the raid on Saturday 25FEB2017
driving from our hotel in nearby
Dieppe, France where we had
toured the battlefields of the
1942 Operation "Jubilee"; the
codename of the failed Canadian
invasion of France which will be
featured on this website in the
future. An exhibition in the Cap
d'Antifer lighthouse with
uniforms, artifacts and
individual stories of people who
played a role in the operation
was scheduled to be opened
ceremoniously at 1000 that
morning. When we entered the
lighthouse in advance at 0945,
Mayor Cyriaque LETHUILLIER was
just delivering his opening
speech (photo 1). Sometime
later, two travel coaches with
the men of "C" Bruneval Company
of 2nd BN, The Para Regiment
arrived in the town of La
Poterie arrived (Photo2) who
presented themselves to the
local population. In their
company was the unit's former
commander Lieutenant General
James I. Bashal CSE, at present
commanding the British Home
Command. Bashall was
commissioned in to the Parachute
Regiment in 1984. By 2002 he had
become Commanding Officer of the
2nd BN, The Parachute Regiment
serving in Afghanistan. (Photos
3 & 4).
The troops then marched to the
LZ of their unit 75 years ago
(photo 5).
After a lunch with cider in the
buildings in the RECTANGLE woods
they went on to the site of the
raid itself where local French
historians explained the terrain
features in their own language,
translated by a Canadian member
of the company (photos 6 to 9).
We took the opportunity to walk
the grounds of the battlefield
and enter the cellar beneath the
remains of the villa's terrace
which had been demolished by the
Nazis after the raid (photos 10
to 16).
The entire company then followed
he path to the raid's extraction
point on the beach from the
German concrete bunker on the
cliff top codenamed REDOUBT,
passing the bunker codenamed
BEACH FORT (photos 17 to 21).
This concluded the retracing of
the footsteps of MAJ Frost's "C"
Company by its currently serving
members.
CONCLUSION:
Operation "Biting" was a
successful raid on a Nazi radar
station by British paratroopers
in 1942. It brought back crucial
information about the enemy's
level of sophistication in radar
technique, honed the skills of
the newly formed British
Airborne Forces and perhaps
marked the beginning of the end
of World War Two as the British
Empire delivered a formidable
punch back this time.
On 23MAR2013 we visited a
meeting of the Society of
Friends of the Airborne Museum
"Hartenstein" in Oosterbeek, the
Netherlands. The meeting was
held in a nearby theater. On
display were several items from
the Battle of Arnhem, books were
sold and information on upcoming
battlefield tours was provided.
During the sales pitch for a
tour to Dieppe and Bruneval in
June 2013, it was explained that
the actual objective of the
Bruneval raid couldn't be
visited at present.
The area where the LONE HOUSE
(villa) and HENRY (radar set)
where, is on private property,
aggressive bulls are pastured in
the fields of the objective and
only a bit of an original floor
is what can be seen when
trespassing to it.
Owing to several favourable
circumstances this agency was
privileged to actually have
boots on the ground of Operation
"Biting" 75 years after it was
executed.
EXHIBITS:
(click to enlarge) Display of an
upcoming battlefield tour to the
Dieppe and Bruneval area in June
2013 by
the Society of Friends of the
Airborne Museum "Hartenstein" in
Oosterbeek, the Netherlands.
During the sales pitch for this
event it was explained that the
actual objective of the Bruneval
raid
couldn't be visited at present.
Battle Study#27 proved otherwise.
11APR2022 UPDATE
From April 1st to 3rd 2022, 80 years
and little over a month after
Operation "Biting", this agency
revisited the area of the Bruneval
Raid. The primary objective was to
take current photographs from the
same altitudes and locations in the
air as the Royal Air Force
reconnaissance photos of the
objective ; see Training
paragraph above. We employed the
services of a local helicopter firm
flying from the Le Havre-Octeville
aerodrome.
With the help of a very skillful
pilot our mission was accomplished and
it resulted in three new Now &
Then-comparisons in the familiar
Battle Detective diptych format:
(click to enlarge)
We also created a
modest video of how these "Now-"
aerial photos have been made:
Visiting the area of
the operation again
after five years. In this part of
France, historical battlefields in
general remain untouched. This also
applies to the communities of Saint-Jouin-Bruneval
and La Poterie-Cap-d'Antifer in the
Seine-Maritime department.
(click to enlarge) 1)2)
3)4)
1) On top of the
cliff pointing to the La Presbytère
woods (codenamed RECTANGLE) and the
remains of
the villa (Codenamed LONE HOUSE);
note barbed wire as the radar site
is on private property. 2)
Concrete machine gun pillbox on top
of the cliff (Code named REDOUBT);
its roof doubled as a helicopter pad
during our flight.
3) Our
transportation; a Robinson R22
helicopter.
4)
Observer/photographer in the
passenger seat.
(click to enlarge) What the RAF
reconnaissance Spitfire pilot from
the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
must have seen during his mission
over the German radar site at
Bruneval in December 1941.
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