WWII was the most terrible war of all. Making figures representing soldiers from this war was inevitable. The conflict was fought in many different places by many different armies.
The Generals
The most part of figures produced related to soldiers with one officer in some boxes. The Rocco company made a group of Generals/Politicians
From left; De Gaulle, Eisenhower, French General that was not in the group and Mussolini.
Churchill, Stalin, Rommel, Hitler and Göring. All these figures were painted by the late Valdemar Peixoto and were kindly offered to me by his son João Peixoto (JPwargamingplace) when I visited him in Coimbra.
These are the unpainted figures that I bought in a flea market in Parede (near Lisbon).
Japanese Army
The Airfix figures of the Imperial Japanese Army include an Official with the traditional Samurai sword, the “katana”.
The heavy weapons include an heavy machine gun and a small hand mortar. As in other sets, the kneeling soldier lacks a base.
Russian Army
The Russian Army was strongly beaten in the first years of the war. In time it recovered and reached Berlin in May 1945 ending the war in Europe.
Airfix
The figures of the Russian Army are in the usual Airfix style and in 7 poses.
The kneeling figure fires with a machine gun PPSh-41. There is the heavy machine gun, Degtyarev DP, to provide the fire support. The prone figure is in the process of throwing a hand-grenade M1914/30, which is not a very common pose.
Atlantic
This Italian company made some Russian soldiers in its elegant style.
Figures were provided with a very distinctive head gear.
The kneeling soldier, fortunately, got a stone under the right knee. The prone soldier looks as he was examining the soil… Not the best pose ever.