Bid to honour British flying ace

RELATIVES and family friends of a Second World War flying ace are trying to overturn a 65-year-old British decision to refuse him honours that the French wanted to award posthumously.

Group Captain Percy Charles Pickard, who died leading an air raid in occupied France that is the subject of a French television documentary tonight, was to be honoured with a posthumous Légion d’Honneur and Croix de Guerre, but the British government refused.

‘Operation Jericho’ was a Royal Air Force bombing raid aimed at smashing open Amiens prison, where captured members of the French Resistance were being held.

Pickard died when his plane was shot down by a German fighter at the end of the operation, which was later hailed as ‘one of the most memorable achievements of the RAF’ in a British official report, according to family friend William Collard, who has researched Pickard’s life and the controversy over his awards.

The pilot is known to have been considered for the highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, and the French even put ‘VC’ on his gravestone in Amiens. However it later had to be removed after officials were unable to agree.

Now the Pickard family have shown Connexion proof that the French government wanted to award him two French honours in thanks for what the French consul in Rhodesia told his widow in a letter was his ‘very brilliant conduct in the last war’.

The letter adds: “I am very sorry that my efforts to have a posthumous French reward given... have been unsuccessful on account of the British Government’s decision not to allow any English officer to receive a posthumous foreign distinction.

“I want you to know that the Secretary of State for Aviation had decided to give Group Captain Pickard the Légion d’Honneur and the War Cross with Palm.”

The Pickard family and friends have been in contact with authorities on both sides of the Channel and say they are hopeful the decision will be reviewed, especially as, they say, they have found evidence that some officers did receive posthumous foreign awards, so the rule appears not to have been applied consistently.

Pickard’s nephew, Michael Woods, who lives near Guildford, said: “We have two letters from French authorities which confirm the awards, including the one from the consul in Rhodesia, where my aunt had moved at the end of the war, but it seems the British government had this policy of interfering in foreign awards at that time, during and at the end of the war.

“But William has now found that an awful lot of people were given foreign awards posthumously – he has found at least 10 but thinks he could have gone on and on, finding more.”

He added: “Apart from Operation Jericho, I think the French were especially interested in giving him the awards for having played a very big part in the Special Operations Executive [Second World War secret service], which was bringing French agents in and out of France in the dead of night. He was constantly flying in, dropping them off and picking them up.”

Connexion has asked the Foreign Office to check further into the policy of refusing posthumous foreign awards. A spokesman said the query is being dealt with by their honours section.

L’évasion de Jéricho, about the Amiens prison raid, is on tonight at 20.45 on the HD digital channel RMC Découverte.