Operation Jericho

On 18 February 1944, three months prior to ‘Operation Overlord’, the proposed Allied landings on occupied Europe, a particularly bold daylight raid was carried out by Mosquito fighter bombers of No.2 Group. Their target was the notorious three-story prison situated on the Amiens/ Albert road to the northeast of Amiens in northern France.

- MURRAY MCLEOD

Some 400 prisoners, a mix of criminal and political internees were housed there, and more significantly 150 members of local French resistance groups. Following the French capitulation in July1940 a veritable underground army of resistance members had sprung up to resist their oppressors, unwilling to submit meekly to the prospect of Nazi subjugation. Their tactics involved the sabotage of the French rail system and German troop movements, high-risk operations for its members and if arrested, Gestapo retribution was swift and brutal. In many instances they were betrayed by elements who had infiltrated their group.

Over the ensuing four years the British Government had maintained contact with Resistance leaders via the British Secret Service in clandestine wireless methods. However the current situation had become dire with largescale arrests of prominent members, now facing execution at various prisons, particularly at Amiens. Desperate methods were called for, to somehow obtain their release, resulting in an appeal for the R.A.F. to intercede on the prisoners’ behalf. What the Resistance proposed was that low-level bombing could breach the external walls and also the doors of the interior cells. Such an operation would invariably result in regrettable casualties among the inmates, but against that there was a distinct prospect of escape for those condemned to death, which was deemed an option preferable to the firing squad.