U.S. 101st Airborne, 506th PIR, E Company SSG Darrell "Shifty" Powers, 1944-45

Darrell C. "Shifty" Powers was Easy Company's best rifle shot. A mountain man from Clinchco, Virginia, taught to hunt by his father, he carried that marksmanship into the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne and through every campaign Easy Company fought — the Normandy jump on D-Day, Operation Market Garden in Holland, the defense of Bastogne, the capture of the Eagle's Nest. Stephen Ambrose featured him in the 1992 book Band of Brothers, and the HBO miniseries that followed in 2001 introduced him to a wider audience. Within Easy Company itself, he was the marksman the rest of the platoon trusted to take a long shot or to spot something nobody else could see.

This figure depicts him in the kneeling firing position — M1 Garand shouldered, helmet netted, in standard late-war 101st Airborne kit — which fits his role in the company exactly: the man who took the deliberate, considered shot. He works on his own as an Easy Company sharpshooter in any 1944-45 European Theater scene, or pairs with the other Easy Company figures Breagans carries — Captain Dick Winters and Lt. Ronald Speirs running with Thompson — for a Band of Brothers display.

1/30 scale (60mm), matte-painted, single figure boxed. Catalog number 25315. As with the rest of the W. Britain modern range, the painting is photographic-quality detail intended to read well in dioramas and display cases.