PHOTOGRAPHER Johnny Johnson had early warning that the D-Day invasion in 1944 was imminent.

He later wrote: “I knew when invasion was near because our aircraft were painted on the underside of the wings with a new sign. I was ordered every night at midnight to go to RAF headquarters at Uxbridge and photograph a large map on the wall of the committee room, showing Southern England, with thousands of little flags representing tanks and ships at the various ports and towns.

“I was always told ‘not to be developed for a fortnight’.

“On the last night I went there, I photographed the map with thousands of little flags depicting ships proceeding across the Channel and when I said to an officer ‘the usual fortnight’s delay?’, he said: ‘No, the invasion’s started’.

“We left RAF Northolt for Portsmouth a few days later and crossed to France to catch up with our ‘Blue Spits’ squadron at Caen – our Blue Spitfires at RAF Mount Farm (near Benson) and RAF Northolt had photographed Le Havre and district for the past 12 months, so we guessed where the invasion would start.

“Five days later, we caught up with our planes and continued to develop films which our pilots had taken of Germany activity in front of our front line. Our pilots were armed only with cameras – no guns.

“Later, we became so busy that we fed intelligence with 50,000 prints from day and night shifts every day.

“We went from Calais to Amiens where we stayed for some time, then on to Mons and eventually to Brussels.

“There I made friends with the Henreickes who lived in a big house. I was with them one evening when a buzz bomb (doodlebug) came over.

“When I got back to camp, our tents had been blown away and three colleagues who slept in my tent had been wounded. My sleeping space was nearest the explosion.”

Mr Johnson, who became well known as an Oxford Mail photographer, had an earlier narrow escape from a doodlebug.

As we recalled last week, one exploded 200 yards from where he was on sentry duty at RAF Northolt guarding 2,000 jerricans of petrol.