At the outbreak of war in 1939, Britain had no airborne forces. None. Impressed by Germany’s Fallschirmjäger, Churchill ordered the formation of a 5,000-strong parachute and glider-borne corps in June 1940. Now, as you digital war heroes will know, once you land on the ground it’s quite tiresome to get around – especially if you’re lugging a load of kit and weaponry with you. What these newfangled flying soldiers needed was transport to be thrown out the plane with them. So that’s what happened.
Initially, folding bicycles were seen as the solution. But soldiers didn’t really like the idea of jumping out of a plane with the equivalent of a Boris Bike strapped to their chest. And due to this thing called ‘gravity’, lobbing a bike out of a moving plane to then land on a hard surface would, more often than not, leave them looking like crushed Coke cans. Even if they did survive (the bikes, that is) they were cumbersome, slow and utterly rubbish to get around on if you landed in the wrong, boggy field. Which happened.
An obvious solution was the bicycle’s natural evolved state: a motorcycle. However, typical military despatch riders’ bikes at the time were too heavy. So, in early 1942 the campaign for a lighter, more versatile bike began.
The effort was largely led by Arthur Bourne, editor of The Motor Cycle (Britain’s top-selling weekly motorbike magazine at the time) and a crucial lynchpin in getting paratroopers moving. In a remarkable case of foresight (and in response to the growing Nazi threat), he’d been rattling the military’s cage since the mid-1930s, stating that a light motorbike for battle was a Good Thing. Back then, he tried to get them to buy a load of RT100s, a 97.5cc two-stroke made by German manufacturer DKW. But the War Department civil servants crossed their arms, shook their heads and said no.
Fast forward a few years and that all changed when things got particularly fighty across the Channel. By now, the need for paratroopers to have a bike was very real. So Arthur Bourne got on the blower to his mate – Royal Enfield boss Major Frank Smith – and went back to the Army-types with a new idea. See, in the time period that the War Department went from completely disregarding motorbikes to really needing them, British bike manufacturer Royal Enfield had started reverse-engineering the DKW bike in order to produce a similar machine, the Model RE. However, it had one crucial upgrade: a bigger, more battlefield applicable 126cc engine.
Being a weedy thing, when Arthur showed the bike to the Army bosses they laughed their heads off thinking it was a joke. They stopped laughing when someone handy started to ride it. Enter Arthur Bourne. With years of trials experience, he skipped the little RE across logs, bomb craters and generally bounced it around like a deer who’d drunk too much Robinsons Fruit Shoot. Impressed, the Army top brass had a go themselves. One of those was Major General Frederick Browning – the man responsible for providing the new airborne force with special equipment. Being a two-wheel enthusiast himself he declared, “We must have these".
Gears were dictated by a three-speed, hand gearchange and, with a very low compression piston, its diddy 126cc engine could run on the cruddiest quality war fuel. Trust us, you don’t want to be looking for 98 octane when you’ve got to get out of the way of live ammunition. The suspension was also rather rudimentary, consisting of three strong rubber bands. It was a simple, cheap – if not bouncy – solution. But most importantly, it worked. Especially having fallen from the sky.
On that point, tubular steel cradles were drop tested by the army and built by Royal Enfield to act as a protective shield so they didn’t turn to sparkly dust on impact. Other changes were also made to the bike to make it more war-ready; handlebars were rotated to fit within the cradle, the kick starter and footrests were replaced with folding ones to make it even more compact, and the seat height was raised and an expansion chamber added to muffle the exhaust for stealth behind enemy lines. A quiet exhaust? That wouldn’t fly with YouTubers nowadays. Luckily, the paint job would. The first Fleas were painted Standard Camouflage Number Two, or ‘Fresh Dogsh*t Brown’ in unofficial British army speak. Later ones were painted in Olive Drab, or Camouflage Colour Number 15.
“The Flying Flea was a phenomenal piece of equipment developed in very short time and adapted for airborne use,” said Airborne Museum curator Jon Baker. “It’s a good example of industry stepping up to the plate in wartime conditions.”
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(You will notice a few, mostly minor errors in the article.)
