Bernard Law Montgomery — "Monty" — was Britain's most famous and most divisive soldier of the war. He made his name in the desert, taking over a beaten, dispirited Eighth Army in 1942 and, at the Second Battle of El Alamein that autumn, handing Erwin Rommel his decisive defeat — the Allies' first great land victory and a turning point of the war. For D-Day he commanded all Allied ground forces, and as head of the 21st Army Group he directed the armies that fought out of Normandy and on into Germany. Methodical, cautious and supremely self-assured, he won battles by careful preparation and grated on his American allies in equal measure. His double-badged beret, he liked to say, was "worth two divisions."

K&C's figure shows Monty in the field, not on parade — the famous black double-badged beret, a fleece-collared RAF leather jerkin over shirtsleeves, loose trousers and binoculars in hand, exactly the studiedly informal look he cultivated to stand out and be seen. He is the command anchor of the store's British range: pair him with the Prime Minister he answered to, Winston Churchill; set him against the great adversary he beat in the desert, Field Marshal Rommel; and place him over the men who won his battles, like CSM Stan Hollis VC on Gold Beach. In a diorama Monty is the figure a whole scene orients toward.

Model: DD406 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set