In this enthralling history, internationally bestselling author Max Hastings recounts the odds-defying Operation Biting, a 1942 parachute commando raid on Northern France to steal vital components of German intelligence--one of the most thrilling British commando raids of World War II, and one of the most successful. In February 1942, RAF intelligence was baffled by a newly identified radar network on the coast of Nazi-occupied Europe, codenamed W�rzburg. British intelligence proposed an assault to capture key components. Incredibly brave agents of the French Resistance risked their lives to probe the German defenses on the Normandy coast. Then a company of Airborne forces were dropped into France in the dead of night amid heavy snow. Launching their attack, the allied soldiers dismantled the German's radar, and after three nail-biting hours and a fierce battle with Wehrmacht defenders, escaped in the nick of time using landing-craft that carried them back across the stormy seas to Portsmouth. Operation Biting retells this dramatic operation through a gallery of amazing characters from Winston Churchill, who promoted the raid, to Lord Mountbatten, who commanded Combined Operations, to the brave unsung commandos who fought their way through enemy territory. A cliffhanger of a story that ratchets the suspense to the last page, Operation Biting sheds new light on an exciting and little-known chapter of the Second World War.