The Flying Flea
To give scouts and dispatch riders among the British paras and glider troops in WWII a ride, the 130-pound (wet) Royal Enfield WD/RE motorbike was employed. Known as the “Flying Flea” the simple off road bike used a 126cc two-stroke engine that could run on just about anything that could burn and got a very decent 130mpg.
Designed to fit in a reinforced aluminum crash cage, very few were actually used in battle.
This left the Paras to find transpo as best they could.
British glider troops pose with a local French girl on a captured German motorcycle, Normandy, 15th June 1944. –Note the recently liberated MP40, which may have come as a package deal with the BWM
After the war, most of the British Army’s bikes were sold. These war-surplus motorcycles are bundled up in fives for disposal as scrap metal by weight– meaning the 5-packed Fleas were a bargain by any standard.
