PHOTOGRAPHER Johnny Johnson, right, helped the war effort by printing thousands of pictures of enemy positions.

The pictures, taken by pilots, were passed on to military chiefs to identify potential targets.

But life during the Second World War for the well-known Oxford Mail photographer was not without its dangers – he narrowly escaped death from the dreaded German doodlebugs at least twice.

Johnny joined the RAF in 1942 and despite having been a newspaper photographer for 20 years, he was sent on a course to learn photography.

He passed the exam and was sent to a squadron at Doncaster. While there, a message came through: “Send three photographers to Benson.”

He later recalled: “I pricked up my ears and said to the CO: ‘I live near Benson, can I go?’. He agreed and I arrived at Benson next day. I got home to Farmoor nearly every night on a motorcycle. “I got to know that the officer in charge, Lieutenant Chesham, went to a pub at Burcot for a drink. I knew the landlord well, as he played golf at Buckland Golf Club, where I was captain.

“I told the landlord: ‘Do your stuff with Chesham – I want to stay with his squadron’.

“Some days later, I was going past Chesham’s office when he called me in and said: ‘You seem to be pretty well known here – I’m keeping you.’ I stayed with them throughout the war.”

His first narrow escape came one night at RAF Northolt when he was on sentry duty, guarding 2,000 jerricans of petrol, and saw a doodlebug with its light showing coming straight towards him.

“The light went out a mile from me which relieved me, because they usually went straight down when the light went out. “This didn’t happen on this occasion and I had recently heard that the latest ones floated on. I looked up in the air again and saw something flying towards me. Down I went on my tummy and stayed there for several minutes.

“I got up, looked again and saw something waving – it was the wind socket. A moment later, there was a loud explosion near the runway 200 yards away.”

His second escape came later in the war when a doodlebug destroyed his tent.

More on that and other Johnny Johnson wartime memories next week.