page_title: Percy Charles Pickard
section_title: No. 161 Squadron missions
hierarchical_section_title: Percy Charles Pickard / Special operations / No. 161 Squadron missions
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Le Groupe 161 de Tangmere en 1943 avec le Lysander de H.Verity . Musée de la Reddition .
context_page_description: Group Captain Percy Charles "Pick" Pickard, DSO & Two Bars, DFC was an officer in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He served as a pilot and commander and was one of the only officers of the RAF to be awarded the DSO three times in the Second World War. He flew over a hundred sorties and distinguished himself in a variety of operations requiring coolness under fire. Some consider Pickard of the same calibre as Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshire.
  In 1941 he participated in the making of the 1941 wartime film Target for To-night, which made him a public figure in England. He led the squadron of Whitley bombers that carried paratroopers to their drop for the Bruneval raid.
  Throughout 1943 he flew the Lysander on nighttime missions into occupied France for the SOE, performing insertions of agents and picking up personnel from very small landing strips. Pickard led a group of Mosquitos on the Amiens raid, in which he was killed in action 18 February 1944.
context_section_description: October 1942 saw Pickard posted to No. 161 Squadron. In March 1943, while commanding 161  – which carried out operations in support of the SOE in occupied Europe – at RAF Tempsford he was awarded a second bar to the DSO for outstanding leadership ability and fine fighting qualities. Flying Westland Lysanders, he was involved in flying British agents and supplies both in and out of occupied Europe on behalf of the SOE alongside Hugh Verity. 
  Pickard had a talented team of pilots under his command, including Frank Rymills, Peter Vaughan-Fowler and Jim McCairns. Pickard specialised in 'moonlight operations,' flying spies and materiel on a night of the full moon. On one flight in November 1942 he did not receive the expected signal from the ground so that he could land, and had to flee when attacked by two Luftwaffe fighters. Using the Lysander's superior handling and slower speed, Pickard managed to escape back to England despite being repeatedly fired upon and chased across the English Channel. On another occasion, he rescued seven agents and managed to take off despite the agents being closely hunted by the Gestapo.
  One of the agents Pickard worked with was Henri Déricourt, who was suspected in some quarters of being a double agent, although he was later acquitted.
caption: Jim McCairns, Hugh Verity, Pickard, Peter Vaughan-Fowler and Bunny Rymills with Verity's Lysander in 1943.
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