The story of the low-level precision attack on the prison at Amiens, France, has gone down in the annals of the RAF as one of daring heroism carried out to free a large number of Resistance workers from certain death. But the account of the raid is not all it seems, as Simon Parry reveals.
WORLD WAR TWO | AMIENS JAIL RAID
Historian Jean-Pierre Ducellier is a doctor in a village not far from Amiens, as had been his father before him. He also has a great interest in the air war over his part of France – the Somme. Some of his patients had been members of the various Resistance organisations in the region and he began to ask them about their experiences – in particular about the bombing of Amiens Prison on 18 February 1944. Dr Ducellier knew the story well; Mosquitos led by the daring Gp Capt Pickard racing to break down the prison walls in order to free 120 resistance fighters, just hours before they were due to be executed by the Germans. But who were these 120 Resistance fighters? Who asked the RAF to free them? None of his patients could provide an answer. The bombing was, they told him, a tragedy for Amiens. Why, they asked him, did the RAF bomb their prison?
Intrigued by stories that cast doubt on …
