Operation Jericho (Ramrod 564) took place on 18 February 1944 during the Second World War. Allied aircraft bombed Amiens Prison in German-occupied France at very low altitude to blow holes in the prison walls, kill German guards and use shock waves to spring open cell doors. The French Resistance was waiting on the outside to rescue prisoners and spirit them away.
Mosquito fighter-bombers breached the walls, prison buildings and destroyed the guards' barracks. Of the 832 prisoners, 102 were killed by the bombing, 74 were wounded and 258 escaped, including 79 Resistance members and political prisoners; two-thirds of the escapees were recaptured.
Two Mosquitos and a Typhoon fighter escort were shot down and another Typhoon was lost at sea. The raid is notable for the precision and daring of the attack, which was filmed by a camera on one of the Mosquitos. There is debate as to who requested the attack and whether it was necessary.
Background
French resistance
During 1943 Allied and German interest in the Pas de Calais increased; the Allies wanted information about the Atlantic Wall defences against an invasion, to keep as much of the as possible away from Normandy and operations Bodyline and Crossbow against V-weapons sites appearing in the region. The Germans wanted to keep preparations for the Allied invasion and the V-1 flying bomb reprisal offensive as secret as possible. Hermann Giskes was head of (German military intelligence) in the Low Countries, Belgium and Northern France and controller of the (1942–1944) counter-intelligence operation. Lucien Pieri, a shopkeeper in Amiens, had run a profitable sideline as a informer since 1941 and by 1943 had a network of informers which penetrated many of the resistance () networks in northern France. The and were able to expose many French, British and US espionage and sabotage networks in northern and north-west France.
In late October 1943, the capture of the Roland Farjon, a senior figure in (OCM), began a period of mass arrests of from OCM, which claimed a membership of and women, including about A region (Amiens), Alliance, Sosies and other groups ready for an expected Allied invasion. Prisoners of the winter offensive of 1943–1944, taken around Amiens were imprisoned at the local prison where, in December 1943, twelve were shot. On 14 February 1944, Raymond Vivant, the of Abbeville and the last OCM leader to remain at liberty was arrested. Earlier in the war, Vivant had established an information-gathering system in which people gleaned information on the defences of the Channel coast and passed it to village mayors, who delivered it to Vivant for onward transmission to London by wireless. With the loss of so many resistance leaders, Vivant had come to know far too much about the invasion and how the resistance was expected to support it, which included a plan to reorganise the resistance and to expand it tenfold. The loss of Vivant brought OCM and other networks to the brink of collapse.
News that Raymond Vivant had been captured was smuggled out of Amiens prison and transmitted to England. The US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) feared the Germans might uncover his identity and extract information from him; the damage to Allied plans would be incalculable. News also arrived that two American spies and a British agent were in Amiens prison, two of them apparently recent arrivals in France. A request for a rescue attempt was made by William J. Donovan, the head of OSS to Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6, which was passed on to the War Cabinet. The Gaullist (BCRA) in London was asked for all its information on Amiens prison and the escape and evasion specialists of MI9 and MISX, the US equivalent, began collecting information for a breakout attempt. At all costs, London and Washington wanted Raymond Vivant freed or killed in the attempt.