Max Hastings, military historian: "Armies now fear that heroes will go out of fashion."

In the autumn of 1940, Britain was at a crossroads. After the agonizing re-embarkation of its troops in the dunes of Dunkirk and the resounding defeat at Narvik Fjord, Norway, on June 4 and 8, the British Expeditionary Force had been driven out of Europe. They had held out in the air for a month when the British RAF was able to repel the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Without command of the skies , the Third Reich's Operation Sealion to Invading the British Isles had failed. But it also left the English confined to their shores, surrounded by water.

It was a time of military theater , in its purest sense of representation, as English military historian Max Hastings explains to El Confidencial via Zoom. A kind of war comedy, with small, dazzling actions by special commandos and paratrooper brigades in high-risk operations, the aim of which was to maintain morale, not only in resistance but also in combat, in a time of anxiety .

But there was another pillar in Britain's forced long-range struggle against "an infinitely superior army" like the Wehrmacht, according to Hastings, which would prove decisive for the development of World War II: civilian-operated technology and science, in which the British completely surpassed the Nazis, in a lesson in adaptability and opportunity.

This episode now has echoes today, when remote warfare and technology are proving decisive in the hostilities between Israel and Iran, as well as between Ukraine and Russia. Large-scale remote-controlled military operations rely on intelligence and technological mastery, such as the Mossad operation to blow up the pagers of Hamas leaders, or Ukraine's operation to deploy infiltrating drones behind enemy lines to destroy Russian aircraft thousands of miles behind the enemy lines. All this without risking the lives of its soldiers .

Are large armies, then, necessary, with combat discipline like those of the Third Reich? Is the human factor in war disappearing , and with it, that last refuge for heroic actions carried out by real people? Are such military feats still a balm for the combatants in the endless horror of war?

Parachutes vs. radars

Max Hastings, who has just published Operation Biting: The Parachute Assault on Hitler's Radar (Crítica) in Spanish, reflects on these and other issues in an interview with El Confidencial. "I've read a lot lately about Iran, Israel, and the US, and most experts admit they have no idea what will happen. Intelligence is vital, especially for locating enemies. They want to predict behavior, but not even the CIA can. They're always trying to guess."

Hastings delves into a little-known history of World War II, with a vibrant story that combines two of the key components of British resistance at the beginning of the war. The issue of radar , which proved decisive in the victory against the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain; and the film-like military operations starring the newly created special forces, such as the SOE and the SAS. Trapped on their shores, with the navy away from home and only a few planes, the British did not stop trying to move the tide of war, even from a distance.

One day, a reconnaissance plane captured a disturbing photograph next to an old French castle, on a steep cliff near Bruneval, Normandy , where two years later the largest amphibious operation in history would take place. The photograph showed what could be an antenna, when it was assumed that the Third Reich did not yet have that technology. Luftwaffe signals intercepted at Bletchley Park and deciphered by Ultra paved the way for the English scientist Reg Jones , to realize what could be hidden in that facility.

Jomes was a scholar of mythological culture. The Germans referred to the area as Freya , who, the scientist noted at the time, was a goddess from Germanic mythology "who had chosen a lover, rather than a husband, so that she could obtain the magic necklace of Brisingamen. The necklace had the gift of seeing a hundred miles away , not only in daylight but also in darkness." Freya was a Nazi radar .

QUESTION: The story of Operation Biting is inevitably reminiscent of those popular 1960s novels, like those by Alistair MacLean or Jack Higgins, which were adapted for the screen in fiction titles like The Guns of Navarone and The Eagle Has Landed. Was it an inspiration to recover the true stories behind those epic operations?

ANSWER: Without a doubt. Operation Biting was a bestseller in the UK largely because it's a story with a happy ending, Alistair MacLean-style. If we look at the bigger picture of the Second World War, in the four years between Dunkirk and D-Day , much of the British army was simply training in the UK. Churchill understood that it was essential to maintain the morale of the British people, to make them feel that they were not just resisting the Germans, but also fighting them. In addition to the bombing offensive, which was used to showcase great achievements, Churchill promoted what I call military theater : small operations that, while not decisive, seemed important. Operation Biting, for example, only involved one company, but it made the front page of every British newspaper.

When you mention The Guns of Navarone , I think of the many British special operations in the Aegean between 1942 and 1943, which failed, but we love stories with happy endings. Biting had that, and that made her very "MacLean." Moreover, there were many upper-class British figures who were able to convince their superiors or Churchill himself to carry out these operations, sometimes more out of a spirit of adventure than strategic necessity. This often annoyed the generals, but it offered satisfaction to those carrying them out.

Q.- After some achievements like Biting, did a taste emerge in the British Army for these kinds of spectacular paratroop operations that would later end in disasters like Market Garden?

A.- It's true that at Biting all the luck was on the British side . The important paratroopers—engineers, scientists, the commander—landed in the right place. Others landed miles away, but managed to reach the battlefield in time. After capturing the radar pieces, they waited on the beach for 45 minutes, and the Germans didn't react. Finally, they were picked up by boats. This gave rise to a dangerous sense of invincibility . Commanders like Mountbatten and Browning began to believe they could repeat the success. Thus, major operations like Saint-Nazaire and Dieppe were born. Saint-Nazaire was a success with many casualties; Dieppe, a disaster. And then, as you rightly point out, Market Garden.

I myself made a night jump with the British Parachute Regiment in 1963. Even though it was peacetime, with no enemy, it took us hours to reorganize after the jump. Imagine that in wartime. At Market Garden, it was a huge mistake to drop troops 6 or 7 miles from their objective. They should have used gliders directly onto the bridge, like in Normandy. It's true that paratroop operations have a certain glamour; I still have my paratroop jacket with the wings. But it's not a good way to deliver troops to the battlefield . On D-Day, many paratroopers landed 20 miles from their objective.

Q: Let's talk about radar. In the book, you present it as a decisive electronic weapon. I thought it was already known by then that the Third Reich also had that technology.

A.- The extraordinary thing is that RV Jones , a brilliant British scientist, still had trouble convincing many commanders that the Germans had an effective radar in 1941. The British were so proud of their own radar that they didn't want to accept that the Germans had developed something similar. Throughout the war, a kind of electronic "tennis match" was waged between the two sides.

The German system could guide a night fighter toward the British bombers, but only one at a time. From what they had learned at Bruneval, the British realized that if they concentrated all their planes in a narrow air corridor, they could saturate the German defenses. This gave them a temporary advantage . But then the Germans adapted their techniques, and the advantage returned to their side. Despite everything, Jones's work was key. He and other bright civilians were integrated into the war effort, something neither the Germans nor the Japanese were able to do with the same effectiveness. Churchill didn't care about people's origins : if they were intelligent, he wanted them on his team. So, even if the British army wasn't always the best, its war machine was very efficient.

Q: We're now seeing special operations with decisive impact: drones in Ukraine, precise intelligence from Israel. Doesn't that sound like what you were saying about the importance of signals during World War II?

A. Yes. Soldiers today fear that heroism is going out of fashion, because technology is increasingly dominant. War has always been horrible, but before, there was room for human initiative. Today, drones make it possible to destroy targets thousands of miles away, and it's true that we're moving toward that form of warfare. Intelligence remains vital, but it's not infallible. What's surprising, despite the billions invested, is how much is unknown. In Vietnam, for example, Nixon and Kissinger believed Moscow controlled Hanoi. But Brezhnev didn't want to be drawn into Indochina.

Even now, with brilliant Israeli intelligence, no one can predict with certainty what Iran will do, or whether Israel will succeed in halting its nuclear program. Understanding the intentions of leaders like Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, or Xi is beyond the CIA's reach. And many historical mistakes have been the result of misunderstandings . In 1914, the Kaiser believed that military power was the only measure of success. But if Germany hadn't gone to war, it would have peacefully dominated Europe within two decades. And with erratic leaders like Trump, no intelligence system can prevent disastrous decisions. Even the failures of artificial intelligence —as has happened in Gaza, with civilian casualties—remind us that technology, though useful, is also dangerous.

Q: There was a time in World War II when the RAF seemed intent on winning the war on its own. And as we see in Gaza or Iran, it all comes down to very specific operations.

A.- We also see it in Ukraine. And while some of these operations are brilliant—for example, the Israeli one that planted bombs in cell phones— we must be careful not to be dazzled by military achievements and forget the fundamental point: where does all this lead politically? As a young man, I had great affection for Israel. I often went there as a correspondent and admired its military capabilities. In 1973, I was in the Golan Heights and the Suez Canal , and I received an award for my reporting. But an old colleague, the journalist James Cameron, who had covered the creation of the State of Israel, wrote to me after that war. He said: "I admire your articles; I would have written the same. But I wonder if we don't admire Israel's military achievements too much and forget the underlying political issues."

Over the years, I've come to realize he was right. What matters isn't just tactical success, but its impact on the geopolitical landscape .