File talk:Johnnie-Johinson-Normandy.jpg
Date
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The photograph was almost certainly taken in early-mid June 1944 as the RAF ordered the removal of Invasion stripes from all RAF aircraft a few weeks after D-day (6th June) itself.
As a rough guide therefore, if any RAF aircraft is photographed wearing these stripes the photograph would have had to have been taken in the short period between the evening of the 4th June 1944 when they were applied (the invasion was postponed a day due to bad weather), and sometime in mid-June when they were ordered removed.
Their initial main purpose was to identify the mass of Allied aircraft to friendly ships of the invasion fleet most of whose crews had never operated in such close proximity to large numbers of friendly aircraft. Once the initial landings were over and the ship's crews had by then become accustomed to Allied aircraft the stripes were thought no longer needed.
