John Snagge

John Derrick Mordaunt Snagge OBE (8 May 1904 – 25 March 1996) was a British newsreader and commentator on BBC Radio.

By the time of the D-Day landings in 1944, he was presenting the magazine programme War Report which featured regular news from the beaches of Normandy.

He announced that Allied Armies have started landing "on the northern coast of France" at 9.32 am on 6 June, but without giving the actual location (Normandy).

In the early 1950s, Snagge played a role in negotiations that led to the radio comedy series The Goon Show being commissioned by the BBC.

Later, in the 1970s, he echoed his wartime role by appearing as the newsreader in the radio version of Dad's Army, setting the scene at the beginning of each episode.

Around this time he also appeared on Noel Edmonds's Radio 1 show on Sunday mornings, a role subsequently taken up by Brian Perkins.

During the 1949 University Boat Race Snagge's voice filled with excitement and he reported: "I can't see who's in the lead but it's either Oxford or Cambridge".

John Snagge (r) with Frits Thors during a conference in the Netherlands with Radio Oranje in 1946