The Mills bomb was the British infantryman's pocket-sized siege weapon. A cast-iron grooved fragmentation grenade about the size of a pear, filled with two ounces of Baratol and fitted with a four-second time fuse, it was the tool of last resort for clearing pillboxes, hedgerow strongpoints, and trench positions where rifle fire couldn't reach the defenders. Every British infantryman who came ashore on Gold Beach on June 6, 1944 carried at least two Mills bombs alongside his fifty rounds of .303 in cotton bandoleers and two spare Bren gun magazines for the section's automatic weapon — the load was heavy, the kit was clumsy, and the bomb had to be thrown with the lever already released, counting one-two-three before the four-second fuse closed. CSM Stan Hollis took the second of his two pillboxes that morning single-handed and almost certainly with a Mills bomb in his hand.

This King & Country figure shows a Gold Beach infantryman mid-throw: weight forward on the right leg, left arm pulled back from the release, the bomb already on its way toward the German position. His MkII steel helmet wears the same foliage-strung scrim net the Normandy infantry adopted on landing, his No. 4 Mk. 1 Lee-Enfield slung across his back muzzle-down, and his 1937-pattern webbing carries the small Bren gun magazine pouches at the chest. The gas-mask haversack rides at his front in pale canvas, his water bottle in green canvas at the hip. The Green Howards' regimental flash is visible at the upper sleeve — the same regiment as CSM Stan Hollis VC, the same battalion, the same morning, and quite possibly the same German position Hollis cleared with a grenade of his own. The Gold Beach Radioman is calling the result up to battalion as the bomb goes over, and Field Marshal Montgomery in Normandy holds the army-group command back across the Channel.

Model: DD415 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set