Operation Jericho
In 1943, the Gestapo rounded up many members of the French Resistance in northern France and consigned them to the Amiens prison. Word made it out that the Germans planned to liquidate their prisoners, starting with a mass execution of over 100 Resistance and political prisoners on February 19, 1944. A precision airstrike to breach the prison’s walls and allow the inmates an opportunity for a mass jailbreak was requested, and the RAF’s Second Tactical Air Force drew up plans for Operation Jericho.
Finding the prison was easy, as it was a conspicuous building with high walls in an open area adjacent to the long and straight Albert-Amiens road. The difficulty, in pre-smart bomb days, lay in dropping bombs to blast the outer walls and kill many guards, without destroying the prison and killing too many prisoners. It was accepted that some or many prisoners would die in the bombing, but it was reasoned that they were slated for execution anyhow, and the risk of death in a breakout attempt was better odds than the certainty of execution.
Planners determined that the plane most suitable for such precision work was the de Havilland Mosquito. Poor weather kept delaying the mission, but on February 18, 1944, one day before the scheduled mass executions, it was finally now or never. Notwithstanding heavy snow and fog, eighteen Mosquitoes took off from southern England and linked up with escorting Typhoon fighters over the English Channel. Flying low, the attackers took a circuitous route until they reached the town of Albert to the northeast of Amiens, then followed the long and straight Albert-Amiens road to approach the prison from that direction.
The plan was for the leading Mosquitoes to bomb and breach the prison’s outer walls, followed by other Mosquitoes bombing the guard barracks and cafeteria. The raid was timed for lunchtime, to catch as many German guards as possible as they sat dining. The raiders arrived at noon, and dropping 500 lbs bombs with delayed fuses to allow the Mosquitoes to fly out of the blast zone before detonation, successfully breached the outer walls. Then the guardhouse was struck and destroyed, killing its occupants along with collateral damage prisoners in the vicinity. Once prisoners were observed pouring out of the breached walls, the raiders departed and flew back home.
The mission was a tactical success, although the results were mixed: the bombing was pinpoint accurate by the standards of the day, and the walls were successfully breached, allowing the prisoners an opportunity for a jailbreak. At the cost of three Mosquitoes and two Typhoons, 50 Germans were killed, but so were 107 of the 717 prisoners. 258 prisoners did escape, but 182 were recaptured. Controversy erupted after the war when some in the Resistance disputed that they had requested the bombing. Additionally, no evidence emerged that the Germans had planned mass executions of the Amiens prisoners.