The boonie hat is a useful corrective to the word “airborne.” Del Prado’s 1971 American sergeant is dressed for service on the ground, not suspended beneath a parachute, and that is central to understanding the subject.
The pith helmet and rifle identify a regular soldier in Del Prado’s late-war Vietnam subject. The date is the key: 1975 belongs to the final campaign, two years after the agreement that ended direct American military involvement.
The red beret and camouflage are familiar, but the year is easy to overlook. This Del Prado colonial paratrooper belongs to 1952, when the experience of an air-supplied position at Na San still lay ahead of the catastrophe at Dien Bien Phu.
A machine gun, short sleeves and a forward-moving stance give this figure a different presence from Del Prado’s formal uniform portraits. The 1973 date places him in a conflict often remembered through tanks, although the fighting was never only an armoured contest.
Black clothing and a skull badge can lead to a hurried identification. This Del Prado figure is a German Army Panzer officer; the uniform needs to be read as a combination of details, rather than through one symbol alone.
There is no horse, but the cavalry identity still matters. Del Prado’s Hungarian major brings a distinct national uniform into a collection that can otherwise make the Eastern Front look exclusively German and Soviet.
The campaign hat makes him immediately recognisable as an American Marine. The date asks us to stop before the famous battle: in 1917, the 6th Marines were a newly organised regiment preparing for the war that would define them.
The blue jacket and pale trousers are the first clues: this is an air-force officer, not a generic Free French army commander. His subject connects the collection to the French squadrons that fought within a much larger Allied air organisation.
The wartime SAS is usually pictured beside a heavily armed jeep. Del Prado’s 1960 paratrooper opens a different chapter: the regiment’s postwar revival, its Territorial roots and the practical weight of airborne equipment.
The pith helmet promises a desert campaign; the date supplies the more interesting story. This Del Prado infantryman belongs to the year when Tobruk held out, forcing the war in North Africa to revolve around a stubbornly defended port.
