AS a flight officer with the RAF, James Kyle had an amazing view of the ships heading for Normandy on D-Day.

Aged 21 James took flew his Typhoon fighter-bomber from a temporary grass airstrip in the New Forest at dawn that morning bound for Bayeux and a raid on a chateau housing the German headquarters. Now 86, he remembers the event clearly.

“We were supposed to go on the 1st, but there was bad weather so they cancelled,” he said. “We took off at about 6.45am. On the way over the Channel was full of ships heading for D-Day up the Solent and all the way to the beachhead, because they had left at about midnight. It looked as if the Isle of Wight was being towed out to sea because there were so many ships heading away from it in the same direction.”

The raid was successful and James, who later became a Flight Lieutenant, then flew back over the landing beaches and the invasion fleet still steaming towards the Normandy coast.

He remained in France until the end of July that year and his wartime exploits earned him the Distinguished Flying Medal “We flew the whole squadron out over to the beachhead,” he remembers.

“When I left there were five of us left in the whole squadron and two of those were killed after the end of the war. I’m the sole survivor of the squadron.”

James, who lives in New Milton, remained in the RAF as a flying and navigation instructor and later became a radar controller at RAF Sopley until its closure in 1974 when he retired after 33 years in the service.