Roughly 16 million Americans served in uniform during the Second World War. About 405,000 did not come home, and some 292,000 of those died in battle — near enough to one man in forty of all who were mobilized. Behind each figure in that ledger was a rifleman like this one: a name, a hometown, and a family that received a telegram. The totals are staggering in the aggregate, but the war was fought one soldier at a time, and this piece marks the individual cost of it — a man who dropped his rifle and helmet in a field and did not get up.

The set renders him plainly and without melodrama: the figure fallen on his back, one arm flung out, his M1 Garand and M1 helmet cast as separate pieces where they came to rest. It belongs in an aid-station or memorial vignette rather than an action scene — most directly alongside the U.S. Infantry Medic with Stretcher, the man whose job was to reach him.

W. Britain model 25206. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Three-piece set — a single fallen figure with a separate rifle and helmet — for placing within a diorama. Boxed.