Edith Elizabeth APPLETON  O.B.E.  R.R.C.

This page last updated: 15 September 2012

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Alain Millet's book "The Bruneval Raid, La Poterie Cap d’Antifer, Mystères and vérité” is written from thirty years of research, interviews of many veterans of both sides, French Resistants, local witnesses, archive papers and newspaper articles from the period. It details "Operation Biting" (27/28 February 1942). Carried out by 120 paratroopers commanded by Major Frost, this Raid allowed the British to steal a German radar on the Normandy coast, North of Le Havre, with the assistance of the RAF, the Navy and the Forces Françaises Navales Libres in order to study it in England. Over 1000 pictures, in black and white and colour, illustrate the book.

Soon after the end of the Battle of Britain (November 1940) the RAF wanted to regain the offensive over the Continent. However, this quest increases its losses and threatens its survival. One of the main causes: the radars that Germans are deploying in the territories they occupied.

The book opens when a Signals unit of the Luftwaffe settled down between Etretat and Le Havre in June 1940, and converted on radar in April 1941. It then tells:  the discovery of a Würzburg radar near Bruneval; the difficulty of the young physicist Reginald Jones to persuade Winston Churchill that radars are a threat to the RAF and encourage him to launch a raid to steal it. The Prime Minister asks to Lord Mountbatten to mount a combined operation. The following chapter tells the steps of the project: gathering information with the help of the French Resistance, recruitment of paratroopers, their training, the choice of weapons and transport means.

The next part tells the story of the raid: the preparatory intoxication operations that the RAF has carried out before zero hour; the crossings of the Channel by plane or boat, the good or bad parachute jumps around Bruneval. It surveys the attack and the capture of the radar, the reactions of the enemy, the breakthrough to the beach of Bruneval, the evacuation by the Navy and the return to England under the threats of the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe.

The final part reveals the information that the allies have drawn from the study of the Würzburg captured at Bruneval and the jamming systems they developed accordingly. The allied bombers can resume the offensive over the Continent with lower losses. Certainly, in response, the Germans have modified their defence organization. The book describes some of them, and the huge radar position named Auerhahn that they build at the exact site of the Raid in 1943. On June 5 and 6, 1944, using their information found during "Operation Biting", the allies send successful poisoning operations  against this base and other German defences’ of the Channel and the North Sea coast. This proves that two years later, the Bruneval Raid played a key role in the success of the Normandy landing.