The British 50th (Northumbrian) Division pushed the deepest of any Allied formation on D-Day. The division landed three brigades at Gold Beach starting at 0725 — 69th, 151st, and 231st — with the Green Howards in 69th Brigade on the eastern side of the assault sector. By the evening of June 6 the leading companies were seven miles inland, the deepest penetration of any of the five invasion beaches, with the Mont Fleury and Longues batteries silenced, the village of Crépon liberated, and the road south toward Bayeux open. Total British casualties at Gold Beach came to about 400 killed and 700 wounded — heavy losses but well below the planning estimates, and concentrated mostly at the heavily-defended Le Hamel resistance point that the 1st Hampshires reduced in the morning's hardest fighting. The advance had its cost, but the position the 50th Division held at nightfall was the position the rest of the Normandy campaign would build on.

This King & Country figure shows a Green Howards rifleman advancing at speed, his No. 4 Mk. 1 Lee-Enfield held at the trail in both hands, ready to be brought up to the shoulder for a quick aimed shot — the British infantry's "snap shot," the close-range engagement training that bocage country tested every day. The MkII helmet wears the foliage-strung scrim that distinguishes the Gold Beach figures, the 1937-pattern webbing carries the small pack with bayonet scabbard, the gas-mask haversack at the chest. The corporal's two chevrons mark him as an NCO of the section. He moves forward in the line behind CSM Stan Hollis VC clearing the pillboxes, alongside the Gold Beach Running, Firing Rifleman firing on the move beside him, with the Gold Beach Medic with Stretcher bringing up the casualties their progress creates.

Model: DD411 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set