Talk:Operation Jericho

message: I have changed 180 Wing to be 140 Wing. RAF History page shows the signal sent and the sqns all belong to 140 Wing. Sfortune 08:11, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Hello,
This attack is described in the book « Rendez vous avec le destin » written by Col. R. Lallemand who was the leader of the typhoon escort.
There are some discrepancies between his narrative and the article:
#Due to very bad weather condition over England (visibility below 50m), there were only four escort typhoons that performed the junction with mosquito bombers. The unit of these typhoons was the 198. There pilots were Col. R Lallemand “Cheval” as leader, a Belgian pilot whose has join the RAF (he was not yet colonel at the time of this attack), Jack Scambler,  Richard Amstrong as N° 3 and 4. The name of the N°2 (right wingman of the leader) is not given in that book.
#Only one typhoon was lost: the typhoon of the N°2. He was lost after the attack. Its pilot goes back to France after the return over England (sic).
#Pictures were toke by a Mustang of the PRU (photography reconnaissance unit) just after the attack.
Pinson 14:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discrepancies with respect to the narrative of Col.R.Lallemand

message: The introduction to the article notes "No prisoners were scheduled for execution as the offical account states". This is ambiguous, could somebody clarify? Does it mean that no prisoners were scheduled for execution (reference required), supporting the text of the official account? Or does it mean that no prisoners were scheduled for execution (reference required) in contradiction to what the official account states? What does the official account state? reference to the official account as well please. Thanks for helping clear up this ambiguity.--mgaved (talk) 17:29, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Ambiguity in summary

message: This article was automatically  assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: There were six 487 Sqn aircraft on the raid, not seven. One was flown by Max Sparks.
Have edited his name and aircraft back in, along with his navigator Dunlop, the aircraft serial number, and the squadron code. Have edited Cullum out, as none of the sources list a pilot by that name.
"Max Sparks' is not a nom de guerre, or alias, or anything else but the fellow's real name.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.164.44.131 (talk) 23:41, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Max Sparks 

message: Looking up DZ414  some identify it as an aircraft of/operated by the RAF Film Production Unit, at RAF Benson, also the site of one or more PRU units.GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:28, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  O-Orange attribution 

message: Got caught in an edit conflict then couldn't get my restoration of your edit to save. "Invalid CSRF token" or something but it seems that I'm back in again. Keith-264 (talk) 19:13, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apologies Mr Bee 

message: An IWM catalogue entry - for the briefing model - gives the escorts as "174, 198 and 245."GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:42, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typhoons 

message: Quite an impressive source but not written as history so it's taking time to dig out details. He's convincing on the French side of things, especially the number of prisoners being undercounted because of overcrowding and the Gestapo–Milice foot-dragging in their reporting of the number of their prisoners in the gaol. There may be discrepancies in the article as i've only changed the total twice. Not to worry I'll continue tomorrow. Keith-264 (talk) 23:10, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fishman 

message: Expanded and revised section, more to come. Keith-264 (talk) 16:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Have begun to interpolate detail from Fishman but it could take a while now I'm back at work. There is so much more on the French end of the raid that the post bombing section is going to get a lot bigger. Keith-264 (talk) 12:56, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  French resistance 

message: Although Fishman's book is an important resource, containing interviews with most of the surviving participants at that time, the thesis that the raid's main purpose was to spring Raymond Vivant is completely false. Vivant was arrested, by his own account, on 12 February. (Robert Lyman, The Jail Busters: the Secret Story of MI6, the French Resistance and Operation Jericho, London, Quercus, 2014, ISBN 978-1-78206-536-4, p.1. Note that Jack Fishman gave Robert Lyman all his files.) The operation had already been ordered on 10 February, by letter from Air Ministry to HQ Allied Expeditionary Air Force, relayed on 11 February from AEAF to Second Tactical Air Force. (Lyman, pp.128-129.) It is therefore impossible that the purpose of the raid was to spring Vivant. And Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS had nothing to do with it. Vivant himself, just before his arrest, was instrumental in passing the request from Dominique Ponchardier of the Sosies network to the BCRA in London and hence to MI6. It's daft of the article to refer to the BBC interview which sought to show that SOE knew nothing about it. Of course SOE knew nothing about it. It wasn't their baby. It was a BCRA request to SIS and from there to Air Ministry. This has been perfectly well known since Ponchardier himself and Gilbert Renault ('Colonel Remy') wrote about it in the 1940s and 1950s. 
The object of the raid, at a very low point for the Resistance, with so many members captured, was simply to spring as many as possible, to demonstrate to the Germans and the French that the Resistance had powerful allies who had not forgotten them, and to uncover the Gestapo's spy network in the region by debriefing the escapers, who were likely to have a good idea as to who'd betrayed them. Ponchardier wrote that he later saw a German report admitting that German intelligence in the region was disrupted for two months after the raid. (Lyman, p.267.) Gilbert Renault wrote that:- 'Thanks to those escaped prisoners, who were immediately in touch once again with the Resistance movement, it was possible for them to identify at least sixty Gestapo agents. German counter-espionage in the whole region became comparatively useless, and thus many arrests were avoided that would otherwise doubtless have been made.' (Lyman, p.269.) What is true is that the escape of Vivant (he was actually recaptured very soon, but then escaped again from an insecure location and remained at large) added to the prestige of the Resistance, the RAF and the Allies, because he was so popular locally. (Lyman, pp.262-3.) It is also true that in terms of Allied strategy this was just the time to bolster the Resistance, because their help would soon be needed, for instance in sabotaging trains to delay enemy troop movements during the invasion. There's no mystery about this and God knows why people keep pretending there is a mystery when the Resistance figures who requested the raid have been on record about it since 1946.
The article's also wrong about 21 Squadron's role. They were simply the reserve. There is no truth in the story that they were meant to flatten the prison and kill everybody if the escape didn't come off, even though this absurd idea was given out by the Air Ministry in late 1944. Such an action would serve no purpose. Ian McRitchie of 464, who was shot down and captured that day, claimed to have heard the instruction, but only many decades later when it had become part of the accepted mythology of the raid, and no one else present at Pickard's briefing recalled any such thing. 21 Squadron were just detailed to break the walls if 487 and 464 failed. (Lyman, pp.181-182.) Wing Commander Dale of 21 Squadron remembered Pickard telling him, 'We'll use the signals "Red" and "Green", repeated three times, so that if you hear me say, "Red, red, red," you'll know you're being warned off and will go home without bombing. If I say, "Green, green, green," it's all clear for you to go in and bomb.' (Lyman, p.179.) 'Daddy' -- as in 'Daddy Daddy Daddy, red red red,' Pickard's actual transmission on the day -- was not a code word, it was simply Wing Commander Dale's nickname. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:43, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've got a copy of Lyman's book now and at a glance looks superior to Fishman, certainly enough to take precedence. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: At the moment the article suggests that the aim of the raid was at least partly to rescue Vivant.  However, the article doesn't say what happened to him.  Is this because the sources don't say?  If so would it be possible to add a sentence to that effect? RicDod (talk) 18:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question, I had a lot of notes from Fishman to write up before Khamba debunked him somewhat and I haven't got round to doing the same with Robert Lyman, The Jail Busters: the Secret Story of MI6, the French Resistance and Operation Jericho. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 20:25, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vivant