IF041 “Kneeling Machine Gunner”

Crouching behind his ‘Breda M37 machine gun’ this Folgore paratrooper takes careful aim at the enemy.

It’s an unfair assumption that ALL Italian soldiers during WW2 were badly-led, under-equipped and ill-suited to military life...

Among the finest WW2 soldiers of that conflict were the paratroopers of the ‘Folgore’ airborne division.  Their ‘esprit de corps’ and fighting abilities were praised and valued by none other than Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who considered them some of the best and most reliable in the Afrika Korps.