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We haven't all got computers but my friend Jack's story was too good too miss !

Jack writes:
Where were you on the morning of the 6th June 1944? I certainly remember where I was.
It was a beautiful summer’s day in Italy and just 8.00 am on what proved to be the Allies great effort to return to France. I was doing a stint, serving with my regiment the Kings Royal Rifle Corps, on my company’s communications switchboard. The equipment was set up just outside the tent, whilst the other chaps were queuing up to draw their breakfast.
We were now in central Italy near the town of Perugia just a short distance from Lake Trasimeno. Not much was happening and in a quiet moment I twiddled the knobs of the radio set and to my amazement I started to receive a ´óÏó´«Ã½ broadcast from London. The familiar voice of the announcer intoned those long hoped for words ‘The Allies have landed on the coast of Normandy’.
I listened for a few moments more before jumping up and leaving my post — not thinking of the crime I was then committing — ran out into the sunshine and shouted to everyone in earshot ‘They’ve landed, they’ve landed’.
At that a corporal ran over and wanted to know what all the noise was about. On hearing my news he listened to the radio bulletin and soon everyone in camp was excitedly discussing the news and what it meant. As we now know, it was to be another ten months with a lot of fighting in between, before hostilities in Europe were finally at an end.
In the meantime I was to receive some shrapnel in my back and leg, and the prayer book which I had taken from the synagogue in Cairo two years earlier had also been ripped apart whilst in my back pack saving me from further injury. I still have it!
That day in 1944 is etched in my memory; and the ceremonies which are now taking place bring it all back. I hope they may invoke some of yours.

Jack Goulden. Rifleman KRRC.

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