Just Finished Reading: Operation Biting – The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar by Max Hastings (FP: 2024) [268pp] 

By the end of 1941 with the Battle of Britain won and the threat of invasion consigned to history Britain was looking for ways to strike back at the Axis Powers in Europe. Bomber Command was doing what it could with the aircraft it had available, but more needed to be done - especially as bomber losses, even at night, were increasing. Partially informed by a mixture of pride and arrogance it was long, too long, believed that either Germany did not use RADAR or that their technology was primitive in comparison to the British achievement. But the growing air losses, electronic signals from the Continent, ENIGMA traffic and strange reconnaissance photographs suggested otherwise. One location in particular intrigued the British war planners. It was an isolated facility in Normandy near the village of Bruneval. It looked ideal for an assault from the air, something the British armed forces had never tried before. On hearing of the idea Churchill, always up for an example of exotic warfare, agreed that it should be planned and executed as soon as possible, not only to show to the public that the British bulldog still had teeth but also to show the Americans that Britain was still very much in the fight. 

I'd heard of the famous Bruneval raid before but had never read anything much about it before. I think the thing that surprised me more than anything else reading this excellent study of the event was how much planning went into it and just how many people were involved. It was an early example of true combined arms warfare involving ground troops being dropped from the air – in hastily modified and totally unsuitable obsolete bombers - who fought a ground action and were later picked up by Naval forces from the French beach. Of course, being the first time anything like this had been attempted (and despite extensive if patchy training) the co-ordination between Services was... less than stellar. Not only were some of the paratroopers dropped FAR from their landing zones (a glider assault would have been a much better idea, but not suitable gliders had yet been built and tested) but the Navy failed to pick up any of the troop's signals when they needed rescue until some hours had passed. Only a fair amount of luck and a very lacklustre response from the local German forces prevented the operation becoming a failure. 

Unfortunately, despite the ultimate success of the mission, many of the wrong lessons had been learnt and, rather inevitably, a number of significantly upscaled missions followed – notably the attacks on Saint-Nazaire and catastrophically the assault on Dieppe [more on both missions later] provided little in the way of positive results but did result in very heavy casualties on the Allied side. The disaster of Dieppe did, fortunately, have an upside as it prompted the Allies to plan the later invasion of 'fortress Europe' to a much greater degree and provide it with overwhelming force to achieve its aims. This was a small unit action that has largely faded into the background of larger actions in WW2 which is a shame. Full of 'interesting' and 'exotic' characters in the British Special Forces (again something very new at the time) this was a valuable look at an operation that influenced many aspects of fighting later in the war. Definitely worth a read if this is in your scope of interest. Much more from the author to come. 

Yup.... Pretty much.... 

Just Finished Reading: American Sherlocks – Stories from the Golden Age of the American Detective edited by Nick Rennison (FP: 2021) [332pp] 

With the popularity of Sherlock Holmes both in his own country and across Europe, it should come as no surprise that he was both applauded and duplicated in the United States especially in the new media of daily newspapers and periodic magazines. This collection of 15 short stories dating from 1890 to 1920 shows off the range of results. 

As with all collections the quality of tale – both in its execution and narrative style – was variable. In fact, the first half of the book didn't impress me very much at all. Only when I reached the second half did I actually start enjoying the experience. I'm not sure if this was the result of stories improving or whether, as the moved deeper into the early 20th century, they simply became both more modern and more familiar.  

The first story, The Doomdorf Mystery by Melville Davisson Post (creator of 'Uncle Abner') was a locked room mystery that (unfortunately for my enjoyment) I solved instantly once a single 'off-hand' clue was provided. The 'mystery' rested on the readers (and a secondary character's) ignorance of basic physics that everyone these days should be familiar with – even if you haven't watched/read endless detective stories. 

Likewise other stories depended on the detectives 'sleight of hand' or rather dubious deductive reasoning. There was certainly very little in the way of forensic evidence or, rather surprisingly, police involvement at any point! Having read the previous non-fiction on early US crime scene forensics I now appreciate just why the police flayed about so much and built their cases on precious little actual evidence. My advice to criminals of that age – both fictional and real – was to claim they're innocent, go to trial and cause so much doubt about the prosecution case that they'd walk free more often than not. 

After the halfway mark things did get more interesting. One thing I did find surprising was the few female detectives. I think that the thing that struck me most strongly was that not only did they exist but that they were respected both inside the stories and by the reading public (who would've been predominantly male at that point I'm guessing. A case in point (pun not intended this time) was the amateur detective Elinor Frost in Christabel's Crystal (1905) that read very much like an English country house drama. More to my taste was professional female detective Clare Kendall in The Mystery of the Stolen Da Vinci by Arthur B Reeve (1913) where she uses all the technology of the period – the telephone, telegraph, fast cars and an intriguing recording device - to solve the crime. 

A few general observations are worth noting. Most of the crimes – not ALL murders! - seemed to take place in the upper echelons of society. I'm guessing that the 'mean streets' narratives of the 1930's – 1950's was a reaction to this. Very few of the stories involve the police at all – even once the crime or mystery is solved. Then there was the surprising number of suicides – by the caught criminal – sprinkled throughout the collection. I'm (very much) guessing that this was considered swift justice and cut out any messy court case – although handing the miscreant over to the authorities and either leaving it at that or adding a few lines on sentencing would have sufficed. Overall, this was worth the read if slightly disappointing. More Sherlock's to come. Reasonable.  

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide."

John Adams, 1814.

Happy Birthday: Emil Zátopek (19 September 1922 – 21 November 2000) was a Czech long-distance runner who won three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He came first in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres runs before he decided at the last minute to compete in the first marathon of his life, which he also won. Zátopek was nicknamed the "Czech Locomotive".

In 1954, Zátopek was the first runner to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10,000 metres. Three years earlier in 1951, he had broken the hour for running 20 km. He was considered one of the greatest runners of the 20th century and was also known for his brutally tough training methods. He popularised interval training after World War II.

Zátopek is the only person to win the 5,000 metres (24 July 1952), 10,000 metres (20 July 1952) and marathon (27 July 1952) in the same Olympic Games. In February 2013, the editors at Runner's World selected him as the greatest runner ever.