page_title: Operation Jericho
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Jericho / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Operation Jericho. A PRU picture of the Amiens Prison taken shortly after the raid, showing breached perimeter wall and damage to the prison buildings. Note: the ground is white due to the presence of snow. IWM Cat C 4737 description "Operation JERICHO: the daylight raid by 18 De Havilland Mosquito FB Mark VIs of No. 140 Airfield, No. 2 Group, led by Group Captain P C Pickard, to free resistance members awaiting execution in Amiens Jail, France. Low-level oblique photographic-reconnaissance aerial taken two days after the raid, showing the damaged prison from the north, and with the breach blown in the north wall visible in the right foreground"
context_page_description: Operation Jericho on 18 February 1944 during the Second World War, was an Allied bombing raid, at very low altitude, on Amiens Prison in German-occupied France to rescue French Resistance prisoners.
  Mosquito fighter-bombers breached the walls, prison buildings and destroyed the guards' barracks. Of the 832 prisoners, 102 were killed by the bombing, 74 were wounded and 258 escaped, including 79 Resistance and political prisoners; two-thirds of the escapers were recaptured.
  Two Mosquitos and a Typhoon fighter escort were shot down and another Typhoon was lost at sea. The raid is notable for the precision and daring of the attack, which was filmed by a camera on one of the Mosquitos. There is debate as to who requested the attack and whether it was necessary.
context_section_description: Of the 832 prisoners at the gaol 255 men escaped, including half of those due to be shot; many escapees were shot by guards as they ran from the gaol and 182 were recaptured soon afterwards. Resistance prisoners who made good their escapes were later able to expose over sixty Gestapo agents and informers, severely affecting the German counter-intelligence effort. Ordinary prisoners, not recaptured or giving themselves up, were informally amnestied by the French police and left alone. Pickard and Broadley were reported missing and everyone at RAF Hunsdon was told to keep quiet in case they had survived "but it was not long before we heard news that he [Pickard] was dead" (Flight Lieutenant Les Bulmer, 21 Squadron). It was not until September 1944 that it was announced formally that Pickard and Broadley had been killed in action. In March 1944, Ponchardier signalled,
  I 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. In addition, 37 prisoners were killed; some of them by German machine-guns. Fifty Germans were also killed.
caption: A photo taken two days later shows damage to prison including a hole in the perimeter wall (right-of-centre).
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