CHURCHILL'S SHADOW RAIDERS
The Race To Develop Radar, World War II's Invisible Secret Weapon
by Damien Lewis
An account of two British commando raids in the early part of World War II. Journalist and prolific popular historian Lewis—who has authored multiple books about the Special Air Service—devotes much of his latest to a February 1942 raid on the French coast to obtain an advanced German radar set. Unlike many elaborate WWII special operations, it succeeded, producing both a boost to civilian morale and genuinely useful information. Many accounts of the Battle of Britain leave the impression that the British invented radar, but Germans did so at the same time—and theirs was better. British leaders denied the possibility that Germany possessed the technology, even as the first British bomber missions were suffering heavy losses from surprisingly accurate anti-aircraft and fighter defenses; it took the efforts of energetic young engineers to change British leaders’ minds. By early 1942, with aerial photographs revealing a suspicious device with a parabolic dish antenna near the village of Bruneval, intelligence chiefs planned a raid to acquire it. The final 200 pages describe the planning, recruitment, training, and execution of the mission named Operation Biting, during which a company of airborne troops dropped into the area and fought their way to the radar station. After dismantling much of the set, they trundled it to the nearby beach, where, after the usual delays and mishaps, boats arrived to carry them to safety. In the first third of the book, Lewis describes Operation Colossus, a February 1941 raid that destroyed an Italian aqueduct. Although significant as the first operation of the newly formed elite SAS, it bears no relation to the Bruneval raid, but few readers will complain. Lewis has worked diligently with newly discovered material and delivers entertaining military history with only modest lowbrow novelization—e.g., invented dialogue, thoughts, etc. Expert descriptions of behind-the-lines actions during WWII.