Percy Charles Pickard

Percy Charles Pickard was born in Handsworth, Sheffield, on 16 May 1915 and commissioned into the Royal Air Force in 1937. A tall, pipe-smoking figure often seen with his Old English sheepdog, he became one of the best-known faces of Bomber Command after appearing in the 1941 documentary film Target for Tonight as the pilot of the Wellington ‘F for Freddie’. He flew an unusually varied war — commanding No. 51 Squadron, then the clandestine No. 161 Squadron that landed and recovered agents in occupied Europe by night, and finally No. 140 Wing of the Second Tactical Air Force — and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order three times.

On 18 February 1944 Pickard led Operation Jericho, the celebrated low-level Mosquito raid to breach the walls of the Gestapo-run prison at Amiens and free the Resistance prisoners held inside. Flying a Mosquito of No. 487 (New Zealand) Squadron, he stayed over the target to watch the outcome of the attack; as he turned for home his aircraft was caught by a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and shot down at Saint-Gratien, killing both Pickard and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant John Broadley. He is buried in St Pierre Cemetery at Amiens, close to the prison he had set out to breach.