An RAF radio technician who had never fired a weapon in anger jumped into occupied France in February 1942 to unbolt a German radar dish with hand tools while under fire. This episode tells the story of Operation Biting, the Bruneval Raid, beginning with the crippling losses RAF Bomber Command suffered in 1941 and scientific intelligence officer R. V. Jones's detective work piecing together the Luftwaffe's two-layer radar system: the wide-area Freya early warning set and the precise 10-foot Würzburg dish that guided night fighters to within sight of a bomber's exhaust. Bombing the site would leave nothing to study and a seaborne assault would be slaughtered in the ravine, so paratroopers were the only option.

We follow Major John Frost's C Company of the 2nd Parachute Battalion, men who had not finished jump training, and the 51 Squadron cr ...