On 28 September 1941 in England while taxiing Picard failed to see a Miles Magister aircraft on the runway at RAF Atcham airfield in Shropshire and collided with it killing two fellow pilots.

[4][5][6] Picard was awarded the croix de guerre avec two palms after he shot down two Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters over Sangatte at about 16:50 hours GMT during an operation flown on 29 June 1942.

[8] Picard was involved in the combat supporting the amphibious landings at Dieppe on 19 August 1942 and shared in the destruction of a Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 190.

[9] On 27 August 1942, Picard took part in a mission over Occupied France known as "Circus 208" flying Supermarine Spitfire Mark Vb (serial number "BM297") during which he was shot down by Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters over the English Channel off Abbeville area around mid-day.

[10] Picard baled out and parachuted into the sea wounded only to spend almost 6 days adrift before being washed up on the French coast and made prisoner of war.

[14] Travelling in a group of four escapees with Gordon Brettell and Picard as Frenchmen and Romualdas Marcinkus and Tim Walenn as Lithuanians, all posing as foreign labourers they managed to board a train heading towards Frankfurt (Oder),[15] and Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland).

The party of four were brought to Stalag XX-B,[17] then spent the night there, their presence being carefully recorded by the camp sergeant-major who issued them with clothing more suited to a prisoner of war in the hope of avoiding the possibility of them being charged with espionage.

[18] Its officials took the men to a forest near Gross Trampken (Trąbkie Wielkie) and executed them[19] on 29 March his body was cremated in Danzig's Gestapo crematorium.