Only in America!
February 18, 1944, at 12 noon, two Mosquitoes after dropping their bombs on the prison walls at low altitude. Image: RAF.
JERICHO
Dir: HENRI CALEF, FRANCE 1945
Lang.: FRENCH; Length: 95 Minutes
Once the French film industry was able to make WWII epics, it did so with a vengeance. Jericho is the true story of the bombing of the Nazi-held prison at Amiens. It is argued that, while the RAF took an enormous public-relations risk in the bombing, the end result was largely salutary, resulting in freedom for 50 French hostages. The dramatic portions of the film share space with newsreel footage of the actual attack. One of the better films of its kind, Jericho failed to make a dent in the U.S. market, which at the time was inundated with war pictures.
1944: A train full of petrol has stopped in the station of Amiens. The German army, still occupying France, fears sabotage. So they decide to take 50 hostages: if the resistant fighters attack the train,they will be shot.
Brilliant scenes: The sleepy town where people hide,afraid of the boots marching in the streets.
The city council,who has got to choose the hostages. "We've got to put our names at the top of the list" says the mayor. But two members are frightened and they resign their mandate.
The scenes in the jail, where a man (Pierre Brasseur) is so afraid of dying he'd do anything to save his life, even boot-licking: "I know where the commies and the Jews are" he shouts at the soldiers.
But it's the long sequence in the church were the hostages are imprisoned which climaxes the film. Calef avoids the usual cliché that all French people were brave resistance fighters; among these 50 people, some of them rebel, they are afraid to die,they cannot stand that dawn which is inexorably approaching. In the priest' s pulpit, Morin (Brasseur) has gone completely mad, his terror knowing no bounds. His attitude is in direct contrast to that of Simone who bravely enters the jail between two soldiers. She too is to be shot with the fifty men.
(Minor edits for grammar & punctuation.)
Mosquitoes of No.487 (RNZAF) Squadron during September 1945 were flying during filming of a documentary movie titled "Jericho", a recreation of the Amiens Prison raid. After being renumbered No.268 Squadron in October 1945 they continued that flying activity sporadically until mid November 1945 when the big flying scenes were filmed which included a full Squadron formation and flights making dummy attacks over the Amiens Prison accompanied by a photographic Mosquito from No.69 Squadron. A number of the pilots and navigators who had to fly their Mosquitoes up to Paris for certain parts of the filming took advantage of the visits for some R&R. One of the scenes the Squadron filmed using the aircrew at the time was the full Squadron raid briefing.
Image: Peter Handley, VWoC.
National Archives of Canada, PA-124189"In April of 1938, a contract for 28 (later raised to 75) Lysander Mk.I was placed with the National Steel Car Corporation of Hamilton, Ontario, with Mercury and Perseus engines to be supplied from Britain. ... The machines were essentially the same as the Westland-built machines, although the National Steel Car Corporation were able to make larger panels with their presses (including the wing leading edge sections) and the undercarriage ‘U’ beam was of a composite construction, as Canada did not have the facility to heat treat such a large item at that time
"The first Canadian example was No.416 and it joined the RCAF on September 7th 1939. Its first flight, to the great and justifiable pride of the workforce, as it was the first aircraft that they had produced, was on 16th August, in the hands of E L Capreol."
In typical Aussie fashion, having been beaten to the post by a Hungarian-American, flying a French aircraft, John Duigan got the finger out and flew his Australian designed and built aircraft from a place called Mia Mia, ironically not far from Houdini's spot. Thankfully these were both in Victoria.
RAF Museum
Nick Squires in Rome, Published: 7:00AM GMT 12 Mar 2010Air Marshal Arthur 'Bomber' Harris proposed using the Lancasters of 617 Squadron to fly over Rome at "roof-top level" and drop bombs on Il Duce's headquarters and residence in an attempt to kill or maim him, documents in the National Archives at Kew disclose.
The operation, conceived in early July 1943, had the approval of Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary.
In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, dated 13 July 1943, Eden wrote: "Harris has asked permission to try to bomb Mussolini in his office in Rome and to bomb his residence simultaneously in case the Duce is late that morning.
Eden reported that Mussolini's headquarters, the magnificent Palazzo Venezia in central Rome, and his private residence, Villa Torlonia, were both "unmistakeable" and could easily be identified by British bombers.
Importantly, neither was within 1,500 yards of the Vatican, which the Allies had promised not to damage.
"I suggest that if Mussolini were killed or even badly shaken, at the present time this might greatly increase our chance of knocking Italy out (of the war) at an early date. And I therefore ask your permission to lay the operation on," Eden wrote.
But within two weeks, Mussolini was ousted by the Grand Council of Fascism and replaced by a caretaker government led by King Vittorio Emmanuele III, who negotiated a surrender to the Allies.
Mussolini fled to northern Italy to lead a fascist republic. In April 1945, with total defeat looming, he tried to escape to Switzerland but was captured and summarily executed by Italian partisans near Lake Como.
Christopher Duggan, a historian at the University of Reading and Mussolini biographer, said there were probably other good reasons for not authorising the bombing raid. He said: "It may have been logistically difficult for the bombers to come in low enough to carry out a really good strike. The RAF may have decided that the air defences around Rome were too good.
"And if they had just wounded Mussolini it may have rallied the Italian population around him. There was still a lot of sympathy for Mussolini at this time, so there was the danger that the plan could backfire."
There's nothing quite like it. In collecting stories for Aeroplane's April issue Aircrew feature (on the news stands now) I discovered the many pilot anecdotes were known as WIWOLs (for 'when I was on Lightnings').
This photo is of the Imperial War Museum, Duxford's Lightning. This is an aircraft with an incredible story attached to it, that of engineering officer Wing Commander 'Taffy' Holden's inadvertent flight. You can hear his story in his own words here, thanks to YouTube.
The heading photo is of the dramatically displayed RAF Museum Cosford's example, in the new Cold War gallery there. It's a display that's not to everyone's taste, and definitely there are major flaws with aspects of the curatorial and architectural decisions taken, but it's an impressive and appropriate way to display an aircraft famed for 'Going up!'... The two advertisements are from the ever useful and endlessly fascinating Flight Global archive.
A shot from the RAAF Museum's Pageant at about 8.15 am of the RAAF Museum's CAC Mustang VH-SVU. We were lucky with the weather, and had a great show. 
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