Pilots who ╥hopped across╙ to the invasion beaches before lunch and spent a little over an hour collecting about 1,000 photographs described how Allied warships, entirely unmolested, were battering the French coast.
One pilot said that while over in one town he saw an American flag which had been planted on a building by the invaders.
╥There was an absolute lack of air opposition, and one airfield that we investigated seemed to be evacuated.╙
The towns seemed deserted, ╥Even the defences had stopped firing back at the ships so far as I could see, and there they were, destroyers and light cruisers, sitting off the coast and blazing away for all they were worth and not a shot back at them.╙
A pilot who was over the coast earlier, however, said: ╥The enemy at that time were returning the fire strongly, both at the ships and on the beaches, but they could not stop the landings. It was magnificent to see the troops swarm through the sea.╙
╥EXCELLENT PROGRESS╙
Many other airmen gave their impression of the ground fighting as the day went on. The leader of a Typhoon wing said: ╥The opening of the Second Front was not at all what I had imagined. I had visualised a shambles on the beaches, with desperate fighting. But from what I saw on my sector everything was going smoothly and the troops were making excellent progress.
╥Here and there a ship or landing craft had been hit by shells and a few were burning, but the sea was so thick with shipping that Jerry could not have helped hitting one or two if he had fired with his eyes shut. Our air umbrella job so far to-day has been a sinecure.╙
