In the frozen pine woods around Bastogne, the deadliest thing was the trees. German gunners fired for airbursts — shells fused to explode in the treetops — so that shrapnel and jagged splinters of wood rained straight down into the foxholes below, defeating a man who had dug deep but left his hole open to the sky. Paratroopers of the 101st learned to roof their holes with logs and earth and to hug the ground when the barrage came in. Caught in the open, flat to the frozen earth, a man could only make himself small and wait it out. The Ardennes forest turned every artillery salvo into a storm falling from above.

The figure lies prone and firing, an OD raincoat pulled over his jump uniform against the wet cold, netted helmet low and musette bag at his side — a paratrooper holding the perimeter line. Build the Bastogne woods around him: tie him to "Welcome to Bastogne" and the 101st Airborne Medic, Winter 1944–45, with relief on the way from General Patton.

W. Britain model 25042. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single prone foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.