LW089
King & Country
This paratrooper is carrying the superb MG42 machine gun, probably the best and most lethal, belt-fed machine gun of WW2. With a high rate of fire of 25 rounds per second the gunner needed to impose strict fire discipline. Here, he also carries a box full of extra ammunition. Normally, he would also have one, possibly two other comrades carrying even more boxes of 7.92 belted ammunition to ‘feed’ the gun.
This is part of the first batch of our fighting German ‘Fallschirmjagers’ (paratroopers) making their way through the Normandy ‘bocage’ and moving towards the landing grounds of their U.S. Airborne opponents in the hours and days following the Allied invasion of June 6, 1944.
Few of the fighting men of WW2 captured the imagination and respect of even their enemies as much as the Luftwaffe’s ‘Fallschirmjagers’.
Boldness and courage were the hallmarks of their airborne training and battlefield performance.
These latest FJ’s are uniformed as they would have appeared in France and North West Europe at the time of the invasion and afterwards.