No figure of the war is harder to weigh than Hirohito. To his people he was a living god — the divine emperor of a State Shinto that made obedience to him a sacred duty — and Japan's soldiers fought and died in his name. His exact role in the war they waged is one of history's great arguments. The account long favoured after 1945 cast him as a near-powerless constitutional monarch, carried along by the militarists who ran the country. Later scholarship, above all Herbert Bix's Pulitzer-winning study, portrays a far more active ruler, informed and engaged in the decisions behind Japan's wars and their conduct. What is certain is that in August 1945 it was his voice, broadcast to a stunned nation, that finally ended the fighting.

K&C's figure shows Hirohito as he chose to present himself in wartime — not in court robes but in the plain field uniform of a Japanese general, peaked cap and riding boots, white gloves resting on a mounted sword, a single order at his breast — the image of a warrior-sovereign meant to steady soldier and civilian alike. After the surrender it was General Douglas MacArthur who decided his fate, choosing to keep him on the throne as a symbol to hold a shattered nation together rather than put him on trial. Place him above the men who fought in his name — the Command Group and the Charging Flagbearer. As the sombre centrepiece of a Japanese command display, he carries the weight of the whole story.

Model: JN058 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set