Bruneval: The Secret of the Würzburg

Vice-Admiral Louis Mountbatten has headed Combined Operations since December 1941, and the Royal Air Force's mounting losses weigh heavily on him. Night after night, bomber crews return decimated: a new German radar, the Würzburg, is guiding night fighters and anti-aircraft batteries with unprecedented precision. RAF scientists know neither its frequency nor its scanning method. Aerial reconnaissance has found a lone example perched on the cliff at Bruneval, a few kilometres north of Le Havre — sitting there, almost within reach, in an occupied country.

Mountbatten weighs 3 courses of action. He can order a handful of paratroopers to drop on Bruneval under cover of darkness, dismantle the Würzburg's key components, take a German technician along if possible, then fall back to the beach where the Royal Navy would lift them out — a bold raid timed to the second. He can instead choose outright destruction: send bombers to level the site, deny the enemy that installation and learn nothing from it. Or he can stand down entirely: judge the risk too great for a company dropped into occupied territory, exposed on a beach battered by the winter Channel.

The stakes go beyond the prestige of Combined Operations. If the raid succeeds, British engineers would finally understand the logic of the Würzburg and could develop countermeasures capable of saving hundreds of aircrew. If it fails, the enemy would realise its secrets were coveted and harden every radar site along the coast.