The amount of "professionals " you see climbing over cables or standing in within striking distance of a cable amazes me.
I think this is a bit of a modern attitude that may not have been present in the Second World War, or if it was a rule then already, was probably more likely to be ignored than it would be today.
A related thing that’s very obvious in films etc. when you know it, is that actors these days all get firearms safety instructions, meaning you’ll always see them with fingers off the trigger unless they’re about to fire. This is accurate in, say, a film about Western troops in the Iraq War, but for movies set in the more distant past …? Firearms instructors please look away now.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you want a historically representative model, you may need to ignore some rules you’ve been taught as if they’re universal standards