Talk:Operation Jericho

Untitled

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)

French version

After have created the french interwiki link, I saw that the french version is quite different than the english one. The french one includes this operation as part of the global Operation Fortitude of desinformation. There were no much and important of french resistance people to free in this prison. Who's right ? TCY 17:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Apologies if I'm editing incorrectly. My father, Kenneth Cohen, was the MI6/SIS officer responsible for this operation. It had nothing to do with FORTITUDE, an error that has somehow crept into some French sources. One French source even states that the operation was launched to free my father from Amiens when he was not in France between just before the fall of Paris and mid-June 1944. I'm guessing it was for the benefit of my father's friend, Gilbert Renault/Colonel Rémy, and his network of perhaps for my God-mother's ALLIANCE network. I hope this is OK C.cohen (talk) 21:05, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

It is what was said by a high-quality French magazine about warbirds (Le Fana de l'aviation No 432 - nov 2005 [1]). According to their research, and on the contrary of what has been frequently said, no execution was planned to take place in the prison, many of the prisonners had no link with the resistance, those who had were rather low-level guys, and there was no prisonner who was in the know of Overlord. The airmen were told that many resistants held there had helped downed aircrew to escape capture, but it was false. I'm not sure but I think I have read that British pilots were said that French resistants were informed of the raid and they would help to free the prisonners, and that was false. The codeword "Jericho" appeared in 1946, when the RAF turned the operation into a film. In 1944, the operation was called Ramrod 564, and was nicknamed "operation Renovate" (Renovate was the codeword to abort the mission) by airmen (I think that one of them wrote an account of its action under that name), as similarly op Eagle Claw is nickanmed "operation Desert One". Last, Amiens is rather near to Strait of Dover, but not from Normandy.

The reporters analyses that the operation was part of deceiving operations as "Fortitude" aiming to make the Germans believe that the allied beachs landing would take place in the Strait of Dover. Operation Jericho would have lead them to think that among the guys who escaped Amiens prison, some were higher-level resistants than the German had believed and were linked to Overlord. Rob1bureau 13:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Very few people on the French side would have had any knowledge of the Operation and there would almost certainly have been no written record other than the signals sent and received to and from London. On the UK side any relevant documents concerning the operation are likely to be still classified due to the (albeit remote now in 2015) possibility of French Resistance or SOE French Section personnel involved still being alive or having relatives who might be vulnerable to pressure or criticism.

So what 'research' the magazine mentioned above carried out is likely to be hearsay only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.17 (talk) 12:03, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The attack was requested by Dominique Ponchardier of the Maquis, through MI6, to free Maquis prisoners. It had nothing to do with Fortitude South (the British plan to make the Germans think the Allied invasion would come at Calais), which was an MI5 deception operation (as was Fortitude North, the parallel plan to make the Germans think the invasion might come in Norway instead). That is merely a conspiracy theory popular in France. Jack Fishman's 1983 book And The Walls Came Tumbling Down, and the author's research notes, contain most of the relevant witness statements, and these reappear in Robert Lyman's 2014 book The Jail Busters, written with the benefit of access to Fishman's archive. The great resistant Gilbert Renault -- 'Remy' -- was perfectly aware of the origin and purpose of the operation and never understood why people made an unnecessary mystery of it. This article, like a lot of Wikipedia articles, is unfortunately so bad that it can't be fixed on a 'running repairs' basis. It would need a complete remake. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:07, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Article here on Gilbert Renault. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.100.255 (talk) 18:09, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Very few people on the French side would have known anything about either the jail or the raid. There was a war on, and spreading gossip and rumour about prisons in German-occupied Europe could get a person shot. Therefore the only people who know about the Amiens Raid are going to be those in the French Resistance who were directly involved and in contact with the SOE. No-one else. And after the war few genuine 'Resistants' were going to go around talking freely about 'what they did in the war' as they may have made enemies among their own countrymen and women many of whom were considerably less 'resistant' than they were. The Resistance didn't keep records - for rather obvious reasons - so most information was conveyed by word-of-mouth or using short notes passed from hand-to-hand.

The RAF operation on Amiens jail was organised in a hurry and was both risky and dangerous to both the aircrews and the aircraft. They wouldn't have carried it out unless there had been a very good reason to do so. That reason was that the French Resistance had informed London that a number of its personnel being held there were due to be shot, and these prisoners had stated they would rather have some hope of escape and perhaps be killed by RAF bombs, than be just taken out and shot by the enemy.

And one of the most noteworthy things about some people's attempted re-writing of established history is the number of basic errors they make in their narrative, such as technical details, procedure, etc., along with often a basic lack of understanding of what else was happening at the time. These un-informed 'stories', many containing what used to be known as 'schoolboy howlers', may help sell magazines and newspapers but they aren't 'history'.

By the early 1990s many of the true 'Resistants' were by then dead, and many of the remaining ones wouldn't have given interviews to a magazine, 'high-quality' one or not. They were among the few with any true sense of 'honour', see. That was what made many of them join La Résistance in the first place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.240 (talk) 09:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually the resistance personnel were due to be guillotined, not shot. That was the normal method of execution for 'traitors' within France. Amiens Jail was a normal civil prison as Resistance personnel were not regarded as legitimate Prisoners of War - neither were SOE operatives. They were not therefore protected by the Geneva Convention.

That is almost certainly why the Resistance asked for the jail to be bombed, as beheading was a method used for 'murderers and common criminals' and neither the prisoners themselves, nor the Resistance, would have regarded them as 'traitors'.

France was/is a Catholic country and many of the resistance prisoners (and their families) would have been Roman Catholics to-whom proper burial rights were important.

If the resistance prisoners had instead been due to be executed by firing squad, an 'honourable' method, the Resistance probably wouldn't have requested the Operation.

BTW, any relevant records held in the jail itself concerning the resistance prisoners are likely to have been destroyed upon hearing of the Allied advance in 1944. So any possibly incriminating (for the then-authorities) records regarding the prisoner's impending execution are therefore unlikely to still exist.

I nearly forgot. One of the less pleasant innovations the Nazis introduced to France was to execute 'traitors' and 'criminals' not by the usual method whereby the victim lies on the guillotine table face-down on his or her stomach, but instead with them lying on their back. They would thus be able to see the blade descending.

That is why the jailed Resistance men stated they would rather be killed by RAF bombs, why their leaders asked the RAF to bomb the jail, and why the RAF agreed to do it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.4 (talk) 09:17, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Some of the resistants in Amiens jail had been told they were to be shot. Pierre Bracquart, telephone engineer working for the American OSS, was told on 8 February that he would be shot on 16 February (but it didn't happen -- perhaps the Germans were playing mind games). Jean Beaurin of the Communist FTPF was told he would be executed on 20 February. (Lyman, pp.112-114.) Raymond Vivant, sous-prefet of Abbeville and head of the OCM resistance network, had been arrested and put in Amiens on 12 February. Gilbert Renault later wrote that Vivant himself, just before his arrest, had reluctantly sent Ponchardier's request for an air attack to London. (Lyman, p.113.) There may have been recently-arrested British MI6 agents in Amiens jail as well. (Lyman, p.118.) The MI6 files have not made it into the National Archives -- it is not called the Secret Intelligence Service for nothing -- but Ponchardier said that in February he sent details of the prison to his MI6 handler 'Captain Thomas' (probably Lt Neil Whitelaw, who reported to Lt-Col Kenneth Cohen, desk officer for France). (Lyman, p.116.) Gilbert Renault of the BCRA in London (Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action, the Gaullist secret service) seems to have been aware. Pickard, of course, knew Renault, and possibly Ponchardier, from his time as CO 161 Special Duties Squadron RAF from October 1942 to April 1943, flying Lysanders and Hudsons to take agents in and out of occupied France. (Lyman, pp.168-169.) He also knew Renault's friend Philippe Level, who was serving in the RAF and flew as a 21 Sqn navigator on the Amiens raid.

It seems that MI6, meaning either the deputy chief Lt-Col Sir Claude Dansey or C himself, Maj-Gen Sir Stewart Menzies, proposed the attack to Air Commodore GWP 'Tubby' Grant at Air Ministry Directorate of Intelligence. (Lyman, p.125.) On Friday 11 February Brig-Gen AC Strickland, US Army, Deputy SASO at HQ Allied Expeditionary Air Force, acting for Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, commander AEAF, wrote to Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, commander 2nd Tactical Air Force, requesting the attack 'on a certain important target in France.' The actual details were in an enclosed letter from Air Ministry Directorate of Intelligence (Research), written by Air Commodore James Easton but probably relying on information from Grant, which typically has not made it into the National Archives. (Lyman, p.128.) Obviously the request had to go to Embry's 2 Group, the only viable formation to execute the attack, and back-channels were in operation, so Embry and Pickard may already have known about it before the formal order.

It wasn't called Operation Jericho. That was a name invented for publicity purposes much later. It was simply Ramrod 564. Khamba Tendal (talk) 20:11, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Generally agents names would not be divulged by the SIS or the former SOE for a considerable time, usually long enough to ensure the agent and their immediate relatives are no longer living. This is to ensure both privacy, and more important, to ensure no retaliatory or 'revenge' actions are taken against them by people who were 'on the other side' (i.e., collaborators) but who now, may be living alongside them today, possibly in the same town or village. This means that such information might not be covered by the Thirty Year Rule, and could instead be retained for as long as 100 years after the events concerned.

Discrepancies with respect to the narrative of Col.R.Lallemand

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:

1. 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.
2. 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).
3. Pictures were toke by a Mustang of the PRU (photography reconnaissance unit) just after the attack.

Pinson 14:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the pictures were taken by the RAF Film and Photographic Unit's usual Mosquito B.IV DZ414 O-Orange, with her usual camerman Fg Off Lee Howard but without her usual pilot Sqn Ldr Charles Patterson -- Flt Lt Tony Wickham of 21 Sqn, invariably and mistakenly credited to the FPU, stood in. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Ambiguity in summary

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)

WikiProject class rating

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)

Max Sparks

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)

Key Publishing's Flypast Special on the Mosquito leads off with an article on MM417, and states specifically that it was brought on as EG-T to replace HX982, which had been damaged on Operation Jericho. Will edit the page back from MM417 to HX982 to reflect this, add source. 120.146.66.185 (talk) 12:48, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

O-Orange attribution

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)

Apologies Mr Bee

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)

Typhoons

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

Jackson

Jackson, R. "Combat Legend: de Havilland Mosquito". 2003. Airlife. Shrewsbury. ISBN 1-84037-358-X p. 47 has each aircraft carrying 2 × 500lb bombs, which seems more realistic than the article text which has a pair of Mosquitos carrying 8. Keith-264 (talk) 20:12, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

We have the RAF signal for the day telling them the bombload of four 500lb. This is not inconsistent with a Mosquitos B.IV maximum capacity of four 500lb nor the distance to target. That doesn't make Jackson wrong, since it's possible 1) the raid commander decided to halve the load for some reason. 2) the signal is improperly transcribed and there's a missing 'or' 3) our interpretation of the signal is off and there's an implied but not stated 'or'. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

'Tis good enough for me. Gleaning away and uncovering more inconsistencies than narrative. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Not an inconsistency but a question that may relate to ordnance, the text says (while wating to make their attack) Mosquitos attacked the railway station as a diversion. Speculation - they buzzed or even strafed to create some fuss? GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:00, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I haven't found anything to verify the station attack but the source says that German reinforcements were delayed for a couple of hours so I assume some bombing. With 21 Squadron backing up, there would be enough bombs if more were needed at the gaol. I've ordered And the Walls Came Tumbling Down by Jack Fish[man] (1983) because it goes into detail about the blaggers, it's cheap and reviewers give it the OK. Keith-264 (talk) 09:15, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The sources are inconsistent on casualties too but many seem derivative. Keith-264 (talk) 09:44, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

To add to the complexity, if you have a look on the IWM photo collection (Hunsford as a search term) you get a good number of photos of Mossies. One of them from a few days later shows MM401 'SB-J' of No. 464 Sqn damaged following attack on a V-1 site with its (500lb) underwing bomb points. Room for speculation that one or more Mossies on the raid to have deliberately equipped with only two bombs because the underwing points were used for reasons unknown (though greater separation when dropped at low level springs to mind?) GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

It's a thought itsn't it.Keith-264 (talk) 19:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Each Mosquito was armed with 4x500lb. You can see the bombs on the wing hardpoints in Lee Howard's film, and you can also see bombs being winched into the internal bomb bays. The needed bombload was overestimated because nobody realised that the target was brick and not stone. There was no attack on the railway station, there was only a mock attack. 487 were to beat up the railway station on the round-out as they headed home, in order to make the sirens go and stop the trains running, to delay the arrival of German reinforcements to hunt the escapers. This was successful, and there was a delay of maybe two hours. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:42, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a source? Keith-264 (talk) 00:44, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

John Reed, 'Operation Jericho: The Amiens Raid', in After the Battle No.28, London, 1980, ISSN 0306-154X, has stills from Lee Howard's film clearly showing 500lb bombs on the wing hardpoints of Wg Cdr Ivor 'Daddy' Dale's YH-U for Uncle of 21 Sqn on take-off from Hunsdon (p.6) and on Fg Off Kingsley Monaghan's SB-U for Uncle and Flt Lt Tom McPhee's SB-V for Victor of 464 Sqn, both in close formation low over the English Channel (p.7). There seems to be no doubt that all the Mosquitos were fully loaded with 4x500lb, two internal, two on the hardpoints. If you only carried two, you'd put them in the bomb bay to reduce drag, as was done on intruder missions requiring drop tanks.

Robert Lyman, in Operation Jericho: Freeing the French Resistance from Gestapo Jail, Amiens 1944 (Osprey, Oxford, 2022, ISBN 978-1-4728-5206-9), p.42, says, 'All in all, ten Mosquitos from the New Zealand and Australian squadrons attacked the prison, and dropped a total of 40 bombs on the target, 20 of which were high-explosive and 20 semi-armour-piercing, designed to penetrate walls that were thought to be built of solid rock. Of these, seven or eight bombs failed to explode and 18 bounced outside the prison after striking the frozen earth, exploding well beyond their intended target. Nevertheless, enough bombs had struck precisely on target.' Releasing unguided bombs by eye at extreme low level, with the 'skip' effect off hard-frozen ground, was an unpredictable business.

Sqn Ldr Ian McRitchie of 464 Sqn later said (Lyman 2022, op. cit., p.8) that at briefing he advised Pickard that the Mosquitos should not bomb at more than 240mph in case the bomb casings shattered on impact and the bombs, fused for 11 seconds' delay, 'deflagrated' harmlessly. Even at that reduced speed the Mosquitos would be covering almost 120 yards per second, which called for very fine judgement. There was a degree of over-bombing, which caused a considerable death toll, but with all the uncertainties in play (nearly half the bombs missed the target), and given the unprecdented nature of the task -- no one had ever tried to stage a jailbreak with the assistance of high-powered fighter-bombers before, and I don't think it's ever happened since -- it would be hard to argue that the RAF got it wrong. They had to allow for a high rate of bomb wastage and they could not be sure that all assigned aircraft would even reach the target. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:57, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm pleased to say that the Lyman book which I lent to someone has come back (somewhat belatedly) so I can start altering the narrative I wrote based on Fishman, Lyman using much of Fishman's research and a fresh pair of eyes. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 19:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Fishman

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)

French resistance

Expanded and revised section, more to come. Keith-264 (talk) 16:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

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)

Vivant

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)

@Khamba Tendal: 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)

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)

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)