A surrounded garrison lives or dies by its radios. Cut off at Bastogne, the 101st held its ring only because it could still talk to itself — the backpack SCR-300 tying each rifle company to the command post and to the artillery, so a thin perimeter could shift fire and reserves fast enough to smother each German thrust as it came. Radio reached outward, too: on 23 December, when the weather finally broke, 101st pathfinders who had parachuted into the perimeter switched on their beacons to guide the C-47s dropping ammunition and to bring the fighter-bombers down onto the German lines. In the Ardennes, the man with the radio was as vital as the man with the gun.

The figure kneels with the SCR-300 and its whip antenna on his back, handset to his ear and M1 Garand across his knee, in an M-43 jacket and netted helmet against the winter. Set him at the heart of a Bastogne perimeter diorama, coordinating "Welcome to Bastogne" and the guns of the "Suppressing Fire" M1919 Team, under the command of Capt. Dick Winters.

W. Britain model 25068. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single kneeling foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.