This Canadian dispatch rider was the cover photo on the August 28th 1943 issue of PICTURE POST,Norton also used it in one of their wartime adverts in the October 21st issue of MOTORCYCLING.

Henry 'Hank' McDowell of the 48th Highlanders of Canada who sadly didn't make it.

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7907&highlight=hank

He lies buried at Ravenna

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2223098/McDOWELL,%20HENRY

Whats the gun?

It's a Thompson SMG or a 'Tommy Gun' also known as a Chicago Typewriter due to it's use by American criminals. They were invented in 1916 but by the time they became mass produced in 1918 it was too late to see service in WW1. the company nearly went bankrupt because they could not get orders for a shrinking post-war army. The company just stayed afloat by selling to the public and it became the weapon of choice for Gangsters, two being used in the notorious St, Valentines Day Massacre.

After the fall of France in 1940 the British were desperate for any weapons and placed an order for Thompsons and by April 1942 100,000 Thompsons had arrived in Britain (one being, famously shown on Dad's Army held by Pvt. Pike). By Feb 1942 over half a million guns had been built with the simplified M1 and M1A1 variants made ready for dispatch to troops in all theaters. The gun invented for WW1 as a 'Trench Broom' to sweep away enemy resistance soldiered on into the Korean and Vietnam war with over 2 million made.

A note of interest is that the Thompson started the slow regulation of firearms in America and spawned the 1934 National Firearms Act which prohibited the use of automatic and concealable weapons by civilians in the US. In some states it is still illegal even to posses one, even if deactivated.