{"id":4152671,"date":"2026-07-06T17:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=4152671"},"modified":"2026-09-04T09:18:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T07:18:53","slug":"operation-jericho-mosquito-amiens-prison-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/operation-jericho-mosquito-amiens-prison-raid\/","title":{"rendered":"The Raid That Blew Open a Gestapo Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background .15s,color 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Outside, snow lay deep across Picardy and the sky was a low grey ceiling. Inside the cruciform building, behind a three-and-a-half-metre perimeter wall, were hundreds of prisoners of the German occupation \u2014 among them men and women of the French Resistance, some reportedly facing the firing squad the very next morning.<\/p>\r\n<p>At one minute past twelve, the wall exploded.<\/p>\r\n<p>The bombs had come in at fifty feet, slung beneath de Havilland Mosquitoes that had crossed the Channel below the radar and followed a poplar-lined road straight to the gates. Operation Jericho remains one of the most audacious precision strikes ever flown \u2014 a raid mounted not to destroy, but to set people free. It cost the RAF one of its most beloved airmen, and to this day, nobody can say for certain who asked for it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; border-radius: 8px; padding: 20px 24px; margin: 24px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 10px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17px;\">Quick Facts: Operation Jericho<\/p>\r\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6;\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Date<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">18 February 1944, attack commencing 12:01 p.m.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Force<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">18 Mosquito FB.VIs of 140 Wing \u2014 487 Sqn RNZAF, 464 Sqn RAAF, 21 Sqn RAF \u2014 with Typhoon escort<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Target<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">Amiens prison, occupied France \u2014 walls breached with 500 lb bombs on 11-second delay fuses<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Led by<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">Group Captain Percy \u201cPick\u201d Pickard, DSO and two bars, DFC<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Prisoners<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">~832 held; roughly 250\u2013260 escaped, around 100 killed (figures vary by source)<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">RAF losses<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">2 Mosquitoes and 2 Typhoons; Pickard and navigator Bill Broadley among the dead<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Mystery<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">Post-war research never established who actually requested the raid<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">A Prison Full of the R\u00e9sistance<\/h2>\r\n<p>By early 1944, the Gestapo was winning its quiet war in Picardy. Arrests had gutted the resistance networks of the Somme, and Amiens prison held the result: an internal count on 18 February listed 832 prisoners, with the German-controlled section holding well over a hundred \u201cpoliticals\u201d \u2014 captured r\u00e9sistants, couriers and suspected Allied agents.<\/p>\r\n<p>According to accounts assembled after the war, more than two dozen prisoners were due to be shot on 19 February by order of the Amiens tribunal. Among recent arrivals was Raymond Vivant, the sous-pr\u00e9fet of Abbeville and a resistance figure who, some historians argue, knew dangerously much about Allied invasion preparations.<\/p>\r\n<p>A ground assault had been considered and abandoned \u2014 the Germans had reinforced the prison with extra troops and a permanently manned machine-gun post. If the doors were to be opened, it would have to be done from the air, with a precision that in 1944 bordered on fantasy: knock down a wall without flattening the people behind it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fKaZLR2C88E\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Eighteen Mosquitoes in a Blizzard<\/h2>\r\n<p>The job went to 140 Wing of the RAF\u2019s 2nd Tactical Air Force: six Mosquitoes each from No. 487 Squadron RNZAF, No. 464 Squadron RAAF and No. 21 Squadron RAF \u2014 New Zealanders, Australians and British flying the fastest wooden aeroplane in the world. Leading them was Group Captain Percy Charles Pickard, 28 years old, six foot three, three times decorated with the DSO, famous to the British public as the pilot of \u201cF for Freddie\u201d in the film <em>Target for Tonight<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n<p>The crews learned their target only at the 8 a.m. briefing on the day, in a camp sealed off for security, with a plaster model of the prison on the table. The plan was surgical: 487 Squadron would open the outer walls, 464 Squadron would strike the ends of the main building where the guards ate their lunch, and 21 Squadron would wait in reserve \u2014 with the grim task of bombing the prison flat if the raid failed, on the logic that the prisoners preferred death to what the Gestapo offered.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cWe heard the details of this mission with considerable emotion\u2026. After four years of war just doing everything possible to destroy life, here we were going to use our skill to save it. It was a grand feeling and every pilot left the briefing room prepared to fly into the walls rather than fail to breach them\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Wing Commander Irving \u201cBlack\u201d Smith<\/strong> \u2014 commanding officer, No. 487 Squadron RNZAF<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>The weather that morning was atrocious \u2014 snow squalls, low cloud, a rendezvous with the Typhoon escort that largely failed. Four Mosquitoes lost the formation in the murk and turned back. Pilot Officer Maxwell Sparks of 487 Squadron remembered climbing out through <em>\u201cthat grey soupy mist and snow and rain beating against the Perspex window\u201d<\/em> \u2014 and then, two miles off the French coast, the sky suddenly turning beautifully clear.<\/p>\r\n<p>Fourteen bombers pressed on across Picardy at treetop height, so low that pilots banked to keep their wingtips out of the poplars.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Noon Over the Walls<\/h2>\r\n<p>The run-in followed the long, straight Albert\u2013Amiens road, white with snow. One 487 Squadron pilot recalled it vividly: <em>\u201cThe poplars suddenly petered out, and there, a mile ahead, was the gaol. It looked just like the model, and within a few seconds we were almost on top of it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p>At 12:01 the first bombs \u2014 500-pounders fuzed with an eleven-second delay so the low-flying attackers could escape their own blast \u2014 went into the eastern and northern walls. Minutes later, 464 Squadron\u2019s Mosquitoes came through the smoke at fifty feet and put their bombs into the wall again and into the main building, where a direct hit on the guards\u2019 quarters killed or stunned many of the men who would have manned the machine guns.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/operation-jericho-amiens-prison-during-raid-fpu-mosquito.jpg\" alt=\"Amiens prison photographed during Operation Jericho from the accompanying film unit Mosquito\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">The prison photographed during the attack from the RAF Film Production Unit Mosquito \u2014 an attacking Mosquito with bomb doors open is visible at top left. Royal Air Force photo, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<p>Above the smoke, Pickard circled at 500 feet in \u201cF-Freddie\u201d, watching for the one thing that mattered: figures streaming through the breaches. When he saw prisoners running, he called off 21 Squadron\u2019s reserve force \u2014 the signal, in the dry humour of the wing, was \u201cRed, Daddy, Red\u201d.<\/p>\r\n<p>A photo-reconnaissance Mosquito of the RAF Film Production Unit made three runs over the burning prison, its camera turning. The footage \u2014 snow, smoke, tiny running figures \u2014 would appear in newsreels within months, and remains some of the most extraordinary film of the air war.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9qUuNfl3jEk\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The Price<\/h2>\r\n<p>Pickard lingered too long. As he circled to confirm the escape, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 of JG 26 flown by Feldwebel Wilhelm Mayer caught the lone Mosquito and shot its tail off. The aircraft went in near Saint-Gratien, a few kilometres north of Amiens. Pickard and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant John Alan \u201cBill\u201d Broadley \u2014 his inseparable crewmate through more than a hundred operations together \u2014 were killed instantly. They are buried side by side in Amiens.<\/p>\r\n<p>Flak claimed a second Mosquito, whose pilot, Squadron Leader Ian McRitchie, survived badly wounded as a prisoner while his navigator, Flight Lieutenant Richard Sampson, died. Two escorting Typhoons were also lost. The RAF had bought the breach in the walls with four airmen\u2019s lives and two more taken prisoner.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/percy-pickard-bill-broadley-mosquito-f-freddie.jpg\" alt=\"Group Captain Percy Pickard and Flight Lieutenant Bill Broadley in front of their Mosquito F for Freddie\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">Pickard and Broadley before their Mosquito \u201cF for Freddie\u201d, February 1944. They died together at Amiens. Royal Air Force photo, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Out Through the Rubble<\/h2>\r\n<p>Inside the prison, the blast had done exactly what the planners had promised the model could not guarantee: the first bombs blew in the walls and sprang the cell doors. Prisoners poured out through the breaches into the snow, and the people of Amiens \u2014 farmers, housewives, passers-by with bicycles \u2014 hid them, dressed them, moved them along.<\/p>\r\n<p>The numbers have never fully agreed with each other. Later research settled on roughly 255 to 258 escapees of the 832 inside; about two-thirds were recaptured in the days that followed. Around 100 prisoners died in the bombing and the machine-gun fire that followed \u2014 the resistance\u2019s own contemporary signal spoke of 37 killed, later studies of as many as 102, alongside some 50 German dead.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cI thank you in the name of our comrades for the bombardment of the gaol. We were not able to save all. Thanks to the admirable precision of the attack the first bomb blew in nearly all the doors and 150 prisoners escaped with the help of the civilian population. Of these, twelve were to have been shot on 19 February\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Dominique Ponchardier<\/strong> \u2014 French Resistance, in a signal to London, March 1944<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>For the r\u00e9seaux of the Somme, the raid was oxygen. Escaped r\u00e9sistants went on to expose more than sixty Gestapo agents and informers in the region. Ordinary prisoners who evaded recapture were, in a very French arrangement, quietly left alone by the local police.<\/p>\r\n<p>And yet the arithmetic remains hard to look at: a raid flown to save the condemned killed roughly a hundred of the people it came for. Nobody felt that weight more than the crews themselves, who had been told the prisoners would rather die under RAF bombs than against a Gestapo wall.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/amiens-prison-breached-walls-after-jericho-raid.jpg\" alt=\"Reconnaissance photo of Amiens prison showing breached perimeter wall after Operation Jericho\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">A photo-reconnaissance image taken shortly after the raid: the perimeter wall breached, the main building scarred, the ground white with the same snow the escapees ran through. Royal Air Force photo, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Who Asked for It?<\/h2>\r\n<p>For decades the raid was told as a simple story: the Resistance begged London to break open the prison, and the RAF answered. The reality is stranger. A post-war RAF investigation found that resistance leaders in the region apparently knew nothing of the raid until the RAF itself asked for a description of the prison. Maurice Buckmaster, head of SOE\u2019s French section, denied ever requesting it \u2014 and said he did not know who had.<\/p>\r\n<p>Files around the operation remained closed for decades, and historians have offered competing readings: a genuine rescue sought through intelligence channels \u2014 possibly connected to the captured sous-pr\u00e9fet Vivant and what he knew \u2014 or, as a 2011 BBC documentary speculated, a deception designed to draw German attention toward the Pas-de-Calais in the run-up to D-Day. None of these theories has been proven. What is certain is what the crews were told, and what they did.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_GI2AxVJbLg\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>At Amiens today a plaque on the prison honours the dead of 18 February 1944 \u2014 the prisoners and the airmen together. Pickard and Broadley lie a short drive away. The walls they broke were rebuilt long ago; the argument about why they fell has never quite ended, and perhaps that is fitting for an operation named after a miracle.<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Sources: Wikipedia; Imperial War Museums; The People\u2019s Mosquito; Warfare History Network<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\r\n<!-- mf-faq -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style>\r\n<h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2>\r\n<details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What was Operation Jericho?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Operation Jericho was a low-level RAF precision bombing raid on 18 February 1944 against Amiens prison in occupied France. Mosquito bombers breached the prison walls to help Resistance prisoners escape. Roughly 250 to 260 prisoners got out, though about 100 were killed. It remains one of the most audacious pinpoint strikes ever flown.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Why did the RAF bomb Amiens prison?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The RAF bombed Amiens prison to free members of the French Resistance held there by the German occupation, some reportedly facing execution. By breaching the perimeter walls with precisely timed bombs, the attackers aimed to let prisoners escape into the surrounding countryside. Curiously, postwar research never established who actually requested the raid.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What aircraft were used in Operation Jericho?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Operation Jericho was flown by 18 de Havilland Mosquito FB.VI fighter-bombers of 140 Wing, drawn from 487 Squadron RNZAF, 464 Squadron RAAF and 21 Squadron RAF, with a <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hawker-hurricane-battle-of-britain-overlooked-hero\/\">fighter<\/a> escort of Typhoons. The wooden Mosquito's speed and low-level accuracy made it ideal for threading between the prison walls and the inmates.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>How many prisoners escaped from Amiens prison?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Amiens prison held around 832 prisoners on 18 February 1944. After the raid, roughly 250 to 260 escaped, while about 100 were killed during the attack, though figures vary by source. Many escapees were quickly recaptured, but the operation still struck a powerful blow for Resistance morale in occupied France.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Who led the Amiens prison raid?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The raid was led by Group Captain Percy \"Pick\" Pickard, one of the RAF's most respected airmen, holding the DSO and two bars and the DFC. He and his navigator, Bill Broadley, were both killed during the operation. The RAF lost two Mosquitoes and two escorting Typhoons, much like earlier <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/bristol-beaufighter-whispering-death-raf-history\/\">RAF strike aircraft<\/a> losses.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Was the Amiens prison raid a success?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The raid was a partial success. It breached the walls and allowed several hundred prisoners to attempt escape, with 250 to 260 getting away, but it also killed around 100 people and cost the life of its celebrated leader. Historians still debate its value, partly because no one knows who ordered it.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><\/div>\r\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was Operation Jericho?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Operation Jericho was a low-level RAF precision bombing raid on 18 February 1944 against Amiens prison in occupied France. Mosquito bombers breached the prison walls to help Resistance prisoners escape. Roughly 250 to 260 prisoners got out, though about 100 were killed. It remains one of the most audacious pinpoint strikes ever flown.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did the RAF bomb Amiens prison?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The RAF bombed Amiens prison to free members of the French Resistance held there by the German occupation, some reportedly facing execution. 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After the raid, roughly 250 to 260 escaped, while about 100 were killed during the attack, though figures vary by source. Many escapees were quickly recaptured, but the operation still struck a powerful blow for Resistance morale in occupied France.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who led the Amiens prison raid?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The raid was led by Group Captain Percy \\\"Pick\\\" Pickard, one of the RAF's most respected airmen, holding the DSO and two bars and the DFC. He and his navigator, Bill Broadley, were both killed during the operation. The RAF lost two Mosquitoes and two escorting Typhoons, much like earlier <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/bristol-beaufighter-whispering-death-raf-history\/\\\">RAF strike aircraft<\/a> losses.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Was the Amiens prison raid a success?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The raid was a partial success. It breached the walls and allowed several hundred prisoners to attempt escape, with 250 to 260 getting away, but it also killed around 100 people and cost the life of its celebrated leader. Historians still debate its value, partly because no one knows who ordered it.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; border-radius: 8px; padding: 20px 24px; margin: 28px 0 8px;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 10px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17px;\">Related Posts<\/p>\r\n<ul style=\"margin: 0; padding-left: 20px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.8;\">\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/desert-storm-opening-night-f117-apache-air-campaign-1991\/\">Desert Storm\u2019s Opening Night<\/a><\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/the-peoples-fighter-heinkels-he-162-volksjager-was-built-in-72-days-to-be-flown-by-children\/\">The People\u2019s Fighter: Heinkel\u2019s He 162<\/a><\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/bachem-ba-349-natter-vertical-rocket-interceptor\/\">The Ba 349 Natter: Vertical Rocket Interceptor<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Share this story At noon on 18 February 1944, the guards of Amiens prison sat down to lunch, as they did every day. Outside, snow lay deep across Picardy and the sky was a low grey ceiling. Inside the cruciform building, behind a three-and-a-half-metre perimeter wall, were hundreds of prisoners of the German occupation \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":4152442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4152671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Operation Jericho: The Mosquito Raid on Amiens Prison<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In 1944 RAF Mosquitoes bombed the walls of Amiens prison to free Resistance fighters, the daring low-level Operation Jericho.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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