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A rare folding bicycle carried by British paratroopers as they parachuted into occupied Normandy on D-Day has emerged for sale for £8,000.
The Airborne Folding Paratrooper Bicycles were intended to help airborne troops cover the ground quickly and quietly after they landed in France in June 1944.
They were also later used during Operation Market Garden in Holland in September 1944 to allow speedy access to Arnhem Bridge.
But the cumbersome bikes that had to be held out in front of paratroopers as they fell from the sky proved an unpopular distraction for many men.
The rare folding bicycle carried by British paratroopers as they parachuted into occupied Normandy on D-Day that has emerged for sale for £8,000, pictured above