And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Operation Jericho and the Raid That Saved D-Day (Daring Military Operations of World War Two)

The incredible account of the World War Two Allied operation to bomb Amiens Prison and free imprisoned agents and Resistance members condemned to death by the Nazi’s.

Why were these prisoners so vital to allied operations? Who were they and why did Hitler’s SS and Gestapo want them stopped? And how could it be possible to drop bombs without killing the very men and women they needed to save?

This enthralling true story, so long cloaked in secrecy, is the perfect book for fans of Alun Furst, Max Hastings and Ben Macintyre.

By the winter of 1943-44 German security services, assisted by a web of traitorous French collaborators, had become so effective at arresting agents and destroying allied intelligence and Resistance networks that the effectiveness of D-Day invasion planning was being seriously undermined. Without the regular flow of intelligence communicated from French soil the Germans were able to build new defences and artillery positions unknown and uninterrupted along the coast and frontline to repel the invasion they knew would come. Resistance sabotage activities, cutting communication lines, destroying railway tracks and facilitating escape lines for agents and downed airmen were all essential in the fight against Hitler’s advance.

Desperate Resistance leaders knew something drastic had to be done, and soon, to free these people who had risked everything for freedom and liberty before being tortured and locked up alongside common criminals, pickpockets, pimps and prostitutes in prison awaiting a terrible death.

What follows is an incredible account of the difficulties faced by Allied leaders in planning and sanctioning an aerial bombing, minimising the loss of those very individuals who had already done so much to defy the Nazi war machine. This story is based on extensive research and in-person interviews with those that planned and survived the raid and those that were closest to the heroes involved.