On 18 June 1940, with France collapsing, a barely-known one-star general named Charles de Gaulle spoke from a BBC microphone in London and told his countrymen the war was not lost — the flame of French resistance, he insisted, must not and would not die. Vichy condemned him to death in absentia; he built the Free French from almost nothing. Four years later, on 26 August 1944, he walked the length of the Champs-Élysées through the newly liberated capital as snipers still fired from the rooftops, and refused to duck. From an exile's outcast he had become the living symbol of France restored.

The figure shows de Gaulle at his full height, striding forward in French Army service dress — the tunic and breeches, riding boots, and the two-star képi — mounted on a cobblestone base that suits the liberation streets. As the anchor of a Free French display he sits among the Allied leaders who shaped the Western victory: group him with Supreme Commander General Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, and Field Marshal Montgomery for a high-command vignette.

W. Britain model 10181. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted cobblestone base. Boxed.