The Green Howards — formally Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment — was a regiment with three centuries of service in the British line by 1944, raised in 1688 and recruited continuously from the moors and dales of North Yorkshire ever since. The nickname came from the green facings worn on the regimental coat under an eighteenth-century colonel named Howard, distinguishing them from another Howard-led regiment whose facings were buff. By June 6, 1944 the 6th Battalion was a Territorial Army unit serving in 50th (Northumbrian) Division — part-time soldiers in peacetime, called up in 1939, blooded across North Africa under Montgomery's Eighth Army and through the Sicily landings of 1943. The 50th was one of only two Allied assault divisions on D-Day with prior amphibious experience, and the 6th Green Howards landed on King Red sector of Gold Beach at 0735 with orders to take the Mont Fleury and Meuvaines battery positions and then advance inland to seize the village of Crépon — exactly the route across which CSM Hollis took his pillboxes and won his Victoria Cross.

This King & Country figure shows a Green Howards rifleman crouched low at the moment before the bound: knees bent, his No. 4 Mk. 1 Lee-Enfield held vertically in both hands at the chest, the body compressed to make as small a silhouette as possible across the open ground between hedgerows. The MkII helmet wears the foliage-strung scrim net that distinguishes the Gold Beach figures, the 1937-pattern webbing carries the small pack and entrenching tool across the back, the gas-mask haversack in pale canvas at the front. The Green Howards' regimental flash is visible at the upper sleeve. He waits for the signal to move alongside the Gold Beach Kneeling Ready Rifleman holding the alert position beside him, the Gold Beach Running, Firing Rifleman already across the field at the next bound, and CSM Stan Hollis VC clearing the way ahead.

Model: DD412 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set