It’s February the 18th, 1944.
At 11 AM 19 de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bombers
thunder over the English Channel at nearly 300 miles per hour.
Codenamed ‘Operation Jericho',
they are one of the most daring low-level bombing operations of World War II.
Armed with 500-pound armor piercing bombs
and powerful Hispano 20 mm cannons,
the aircraft are divided into two groups commanded by Captain Percy Pickard.
The crew’s task is to breach the 20-ft high outer wall in at least two places
and it requires precision flying of the highest order.
Their destination is a high-security German controlled prison in France
which holds captured resistance fighters and covert British agents.
Nearly 100 of which are slated for execution or the firing squad the following day
if the intelligence is accurate.
Powered by twin 1,710 horsepower V-12 Rolls Royce Merlin engines
with a top speed of 408 miles per hour
and sporting light wooden frames,
the Mosquitos are fast and lethal,
but the weather is far from ideal.
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and please don’t get a hole in your left wing.
Nature is doing all it can to hold back the wooden framed planes.
With dark clouds, driving snow and rain beating against the windows,
visibility is almost nil, and staying in formation without colliding is becoming incredibly difficult.
Four Mosquitos drift into the mire and lose contact,
and another’s engine catches fire and it’s forced to return to base.
Now with a rapidly dwindling force, the mission is even more risky.
Then, two miles out there's a break in the clouds,
and minutes later the Mosquito formations emerge
and enter the German controlled skies over France.
Surprisingly still on schedule it’s now just past noon,
and the oblivious German prison guards should be heading to lunch.
Maybe it’s going to be their last.
The attack group comes in low from the East,
using the straight Albert-Amiens road as a lead in,
they storm towards the imposing prison at less than 1,000 feet,
there’s a mad scramble below as small arms fire erupts
in a series of cracks and muzzle flashes.
Circling into position, the first wave heads towards the north and east walls.
Fitted with delayed action fuses, the 500 pounders they carry
should burrow deep into the earth beneath the outer walls
before exploding and reducing the masonry to rubble.
Then, the second wave will drop their bombs on the inner walls,
leaving gaping holes through which the inmates can escape.
From the beginning the RAF command knew that there’d be friendly casualties,
but since multiple sources claimed
that many of the prisoners were already living on borrowed time,
there was no reason not to proceed.
With reassuring metallic clunks the first wave’s bombs detach from the Mosquitos
that are flying at just 100 feet
and plummet towards the ground.
Some miss the mark while others slam into the outer walls
and detonate with deafening roars,
but when the smoke clears
and Pickard doubles back to assess the damage,
he’s distressed to discover that the eastern wall hasn’t been breached.
Now it’s the second wave’s turn,
and with a little luck the daring plan to free the condemned men
may yet come to fruition.
Lining up and flying even lower at 50 feet,
one by one the planes dash in dropping their high-explosive payloads.
Slamming into the inner walls as well as cells and guard’s quarters
causing casualties on guards and prisoners alike.
Sensing their chance in the chaos,
the prisoners make their way to and through the rubble,
but many are stopped and fall before gaining their freedom.
Through the haze two Mosquitos peel off and head towards another key objective –
the nearby railway station –
which if destroyed will prevent German reinforcements from arriving,
thereby giving the escapees more of a fighting chance.
Now making another pass, Captain Pickard swoops down to just a few hundred feet
to get a view of what’s going on.
Although some prisoners have made it out,
without bombs now and unwilling to strafe the guards so close at their heels
there’s nothing more the Mosquitos can do,
and so he orders the planes to return home.
Leaving the prison behind in the distance,
Pickard thinks he's done for the day.
Suddenly he realizes he's under attack.
An Fw 190 fighter has made an ambush
and he has the Mosquito in his sights.
Hammering the throttles forward and turning for home,
Pickard is hoping his plane’s horsepower advantage will win the day,
but rounds from the 190’s 20 mm cannons tear through the wooden tail,
shearing it from the fuselage.
The stricken plane does a snap roll, goes inverted
and slams into the ground at high speed.
Captain Pickard and his navigator-bombardier J. A. Broadley are lost in a fireball.
On the outskirts of town, another Mosquito leads a small formation against a Flak position
that’s just opened up on the main group.
Cannons blazing and dropping their remaining bombs,
they knock out the gun,
but as they accelerate away from the target
the lead plane takes multiple rounds through the cockpit.
Flight Lieutenant R. W. Sampson is downed,
while wounded pilot A. I. McRitchie is forced to make a fast belly landing
in a snowy field nearby where he’s promptly taken prisoner.
Though successful in some respects,
Operation Jericho has always been shrouded in controversy.
The theory is discussed in the book
“Amiens Raid: Secrets Revealed” by Jean-Pierre Ducellier.
After the war it was alleged that it had most likely been ordered by MI6, not the RAF,
and that the prisoners and airmen who lost their lives
were little more than hapless pawns in a larger political gambit.
In fact it was later discovered that no executions were planned,
and that no British agents were interned.
In addition, the French resistance claimed that they never requested the bombing
as the RAF had claimed,
both of which further deepened the mystery.
It’s thought now that the raid may have been intended
to divert the attention of German military intelligence from Normandy,
where the Allied invasion of France took place just 4 months later on the 6th of June.
Whatever the truth, there is no doubting the bravery of the crews
that flew on that day in February, 1944.
If you want to recreate a battle of Mosquito vs Fw 190,
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