Operation Jericho: the Amiens Raid - the Most Audacious Prison Break of WW2
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- čas přidán 11. 03. 2021
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On the morning of 18 February 1944, a squadron of RAF Mosquito bombers took off from Britain headed for the town of Amiens in France. The squadron's mission, which came to be known as Operation Jericho, was to bomb Amiens jail which held hundreds of French prisoners awaiting death. The plan for the operation was to break the walls of the prison open and bomb the German guards' quarters to enable the French Resistance fighters to get out. The reasons behind the controversial raid remain a mystery to this day.
Top Secret - covert operations, double agents, commando raids, botched missions, daring escapes, black ops, intelligence failures & military blunders of World War 2.
In Amiens there was a high-security Nazi prison which held 717 prisoners, most of them being captured resistance fighters and political figures who were captured due to their support for the rebellion against Nazi occupation.
British intelligence suggested that the Germans were already executing their prisoners and that an execution was scheduled on 19 February 1944, for 100 prisoners. The mission was initially planned for 10 February and its original group leader was to be Air Vice-Marshall Basil Embry.
Embry had to leave the command and participate in the planning for the invasion of Europe. He was replaced by Captain Percy Charles Pickard, who was an experienced RAF pilot, but lacked practice in low-level attacks. The plan was to attack the prison using the DH 98 Mosquito bombers, which were categorized as light fighter-bombers, manned by a two-member crew with limited fire capacity.
The size of the bombers was an advantage for this mission since they did not need to destroy the prison to the ground, but to precisely destroy the northern and eastern walls so the inmates may escape. They were also ordered to bomb the German mess hall during lunch time, in a hope of achieving the maximum level of casualties among the prison guards.
The weather conditions were still bad, with snow covering the most of Europe on February 18th, but it was imperative to conduct the mission since the prisoners were to be executed on the next day. The RAF has calculated that the bombing would certainly cause a number of friendly casualties, but decided to proceed since many of these men were already sentenced to death and thus had nothing to lose.
The main group consisted of 18 Mosquito fighter planes and one Mosquito armed with a camera that was sent to film the entire raid, making it one of the rare operation captured completely on film.
The group was led by Captain Pickard, call sign “Freddie” who was assigned to bring up the rear of the second wave of the attack and to assess the damage. At 8:00 hours, on February 18th, the group was briefed on their objective and the details of the mission.
They took off into weather much worse than many of the crews had previously experienced. This led to a series of mishaps before they arrived at their mission objective. Four Mosquitoes became separated from the main formation and contact with them was lost. One more had an engine malfunction.
They were all forced to return to the base. This left the strike force with nine planes in the initial attack wave and only four more in the reserve. The rescue mission became even more daring than it was at the start since they basically had to do make it in one run.
One minute past noon they stormed the prison.
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Still remembering those glorious few that are owed so much by so many As my progress reaches twilight having freely loved and lived as care free as a bird . Thank you again
These videos are underrated and under appreciated. Keep up the good work!
Glad you like them!
I worked in Husdon as a school teacher from 2003-2007. The school backed onto to the airfield where the Operation Jericho raid originated from RAF Hunsdon. Being an Australian it is still amazing to me that I would be teaching in a village full of history.
What has being Australian have to do with your revelation? Australia is home to the oldest living civilisation in the world, 60,000 years.
Great produced videos. Keep them coming
Hey this is like Jay Mysterio’s new album!
As a German-American, I've always wondered what on Earth kept Germany going when they knew they were living on borrowed time.
Indoctrination is a very effective thing,
The cheaper way to keep your asset out of enemy hands would have been to drop a earthshaker on them,
Top speed of the Mk VI was over 400.
Exactly!
please also make video on Bangladesh independence and 1971 indo pak war, which was lost by Pakistan