A plaque has been installed in Bethnal Green to commemorate a Second World War hero.

Jack Nissenthall was a key figure in the British raid on Dieppe during the conflict, who gathered intelligence about German radar that later helped the Allies to victory during the D-Day landings.

The then 23-year-old from Bow was an RAF electronics expert whose secret actions in the raid could never officially be acknowledged.

But now a small plaque has been installed 81 years later, on a wall next to the site of his old youth club in Bethnal Green, to remember the role he was to play in defeating Nazi Germany.

The plaque has been erected in Chance Street by the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen after his story was uncovered by the organisation’s archivist Martin Sugarman.

East London Advertiser: Plaque to Dieppe raid hero Jack in Chance Street

Jack, who went to Mansford technical school in Bethnal Green, showed interest in electronics and wireless from an early age and went on to enroll at Regent Street Polytechnic studying advanced electronics.

Martin said he was talent-spotted in 1936 by the RAF and given an apprenticeship at an experimental radio direction-finding station, a critical period in the pioneering work of radar inventor Robert Watson-Watt.

Jack was responsible for many technical improvements and proved invaluable in the raid on Dieppe.

He was protected by 11 bodyguards, according to Martin, aware that they had orders to kill him if necessary to prevent his capture due to his knowledge of Allied radar technology and carried a cyanide pill as a last resort.

Jack, a flight sergeant, was under enemy fire when he managed to cut telephone wires that forced the German defenders to use radio to contact their HQ.

Martin said their transmissions were intercepted by Allied listening posts on the south coast to learn locations and density of enemy radar stations along the French coast — thanks to his one single act.

This led the Allies to develop radar-jamming technology for the D-Day landings in 1944.

Jack emigrated to Canada in 1978, where he died aged 78 in 1997.

He was not given any awards in his lifetime due to the clandestine nature of his wartime mission.