大象传媒

Jack Hearn, from Northumberland fought in the WW2 Battle of Monte Cassino and is returning to Italy for events to mark its 80th anniversary.

The 100-year-old and is one of just a handful of veterans well enough to travel.

Despite the deaths of thousands of soldiers in the campaign, they were sometimes called D-Day dodgers because they were not involved in the Normandy landings a month later in June 1944.