Looks like a Harley WLA. WW2 issue. The box behind his leg is the air filter. The scoop over the headlight lens covered a mere slot in a cover that blanked off most of the headlight.
Harley made I think 1000 "boxer" bikes, clones of the BMW, but it was the WLA that was mass produced
and supplied to the Army in vast numbers. I think it was a 750, and they made a little under 100,000
for the war effort.
My father in law rode one across Europe, as an escort for the big brass as they pushed into Germany.
He said it was one of the greatest times of his life.
2 of them would race ahead of the generals in their cars, to the next town, stop and hold up traffic.
The brass would come thru, they'd jump back on, haul ass past the convoy to the next town and do it again. All the way across Europe.
A few fun facts.
Harley beat out Indian, who was their main competitor, by offering and sending factory mechanics to the various motor pools over there. The WLA was a low compression bike, built to last. Many a man learned to ride a motorcycle, on a WLA. And did not forget it. It was the WLA, that could be had for practically nothing after the war, by servicemen that had lived, and felt the need to blow off some steam on a Saturday night.
They removed all the excess army stuff, chopping the fluff so to say. Then they customized them to fit their individual taste, sometimes wearing the German helmets and other spoils of war they had taken in combat.
And so, with the WLA, the chopper era was born.
