Off Topic: Brief Book Review

[Ren]

Hi all,
I finished reading "Churchill's Shadow Warriors"
subtitled "The race to develop radar, WWII's invisible secret weapon"
by Damien Lewis
ISBN: 978-0-8065-4064-1

I'm former military and an electronic technician, I found the book so interesting that I set aside some chores
until I finished reading it.
It is the story of the British government during WWII discovering the Germans not only had RADAR, but they were further along in its development. So, a daring "smash and grab" commando raid was planned to grab key components of a radar unit that was situated across the British Channel (near Bruneval, France).
Woven within is also the story behind the British developing its first paratrooper commando unit.

I highly recommend it for electronic and history buffs.

(We now return to your regularly scheduled Test forum)

[EdS2]

Interesting... although as you note thoroughly off-topic.

Anyhow,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Biting
might be of interest, perhaps for further sources.

[BruceH]

Also, quoting from another site:

Quote:There's a lot of interesting background to this in the book Most Secret War by Dr R. V. Jones who was head of scientific intelligence during the war.
At one point Jones himself was under consideration to join the Bruneval raid as the technical expert. It was his lofty position that first caused the order to be issued about being shot by his own side if in danger of being captured. Of course, he didn't go on the raid but Jones maintained that because the order had been part of the operational planning the inertia of typical British military planners meant that the order was transferred to Cox for Bruneval and then became SOP for Dieppe and Nissenthal, despite it probably not being necessary

[mfleming]

(04-25-2022 07:56 PM)BruceH Wrote:  Also, quoting from another site:

Quote:There's a lot of interesting background to this in the book Most Secret War by Dr R. V. Jones who was head of scientific intelligence during the war.
At one point Jones himself was under consideration to join the Bruneval raid as the technical expert. It was his lofty position that first caused the order to be issued about being shot by his own side if in danger of being captured. Of course, he didn't go on the raid but Jones maintained that because the order had been part of the operational planning the inertia of typical British military planners meant that the order was transferred to Cox for Bruneval and then became SOP for Dieppe and Nissenthal, despite it probably not being necessary

(* cough *) Military (* cough *) Intelligence

There was a spot in Literary Review in which a former member of the British Armed Services (not picking on them in particular) said his blood would always run cold when he heard the phrase "went off like a military operation"

[EdS2]

Most Secret War is an interesting and entertaining read - chapters 26 and 27 are the ones we want, and they seem to be available online here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2v7lBAIA1FgC