For the ordinary soldier in World War II, the paycheck was rarely the point. Armies provided food and shelter for obvious reasons, so a private's real wage was whatever he could send home or spend on cigarettes, entertainment, personal items, and civilian clothes.
This look at five Allied and participating nations ranks the base pay of the lowest rank in 1945 from lowest to highest, with all modern figures converted into 2026 U.S. dollars for easy comparison.
The Japanese soldier of the Imperial Army was the lowest paid of the war, ranking fifth. In 1945, an ordinary private earned just 6 yen a month, equal to about $1.38 at the time and roughly $16.56 in 2026 dollars.
Wartime inflation sharply eroded the purchasing power of that military pay. Japanese troops serving abroad were not paid in yen at all, but in Japanese invasion currency, then known as scrip.
That scrip gave Japanese forces strong local buying power in occupied China, Malaya, Hong Kong, and Borneo, among other places. When the war ended, Japan's Ministry of Finance canceled all military notes, leaving soldiers holding money that was completely worthless.
Japanese troops also received small daily cash allowances meant to supplement their military rations of rice and barley. A Japanese soldier's annual pay in 1945 comes to about $369 in 2026 terms.
Fourth place goes to the Soviet soldier. A typical Red Army conscript on the front lines earned a base of roughly 600 rubles a year.
Because paying troops directly on the battlefield was difficult, their full wages were sent to their families. State provisions for soldiers included bread, meat, fish, and vegetables, plus 20 grams of tobacco a day and three boxes of matches a month.
That was the extent of it. The Red Army soldier's 1945 pay equals only about $2,100 a year in today's value.
Third is the British soldier, who was known for poor pay. The basic daily rate in 1945 was just two shillings, about £3 a month, or roughly $12.
Men called up for service often suffered financially. A private earned £3 a month in the Army, while the national average industrial wage in 1945 was £8 a month.
If a soldier was married, a large share of his pay was automatically deducted and sent to his wife, along with a government marriage allowance to support his family during his service. The Family Allowances Act took effect in 1945, paying five shillings a week for the second child and each child after that.
Soldiers also received a daily tobacco ration of 8 grams, or about seven to eight cigarettes a day. Despite government support, many families whose breadwinner was at war lived at or below the poverty line, and food rationing was the only thing that prevented severe malnutrition among the poorest households.
The low pay stemmed partly from tradition and partly from financial reality. Britain was effectively bankrupt from about 1941, after handing over its entire gold reserves to the United States in an attempt to finance the war and then relying on American loans. Britain did not finish repaying that debt, with interest, until 2006.
A British soldier's 1945 pay amounts to a modest $2,664 a year, not counting allowances.
Second place belongs to the German soldier, who was paid considerably better than his British counterpart. In 1945, a German private earned a base of about 35 Reichsmarks a month, equal to roughly $14 at 1945 prices, compared with just $12 for the British soldier.
As in the British Army, married soldiers or those with children received substantial state living allowances, which in the German case effectively doubled their pay. Soldiers, their wives, and their children were also entitled to free medical treatment from Army doctors.
A German soldier's 1945 pay equals about $318 today.
The American GI was the highest paid soldier among both Axis and Allied forces during World War II. In wartime Britain, a common saying held that Americans were "overpaid, oversexed, and over here."
The first part of that was largely true. In 1945, a U.S. soldier earned $50 a month, or $600 a year, a little more than four times the British soldier's pay and three times the German soldier's.
The purchasing power of American troops was enormous, and with millions of them stationed in Britain before Victory Day, they spent freely and helped support the British economy. As in the British and German armies, the United States operated a family allowance system, with part of the $50 monthly pay, usually $22, sent directly to wives, children, or dependent parents.
In the United States, a soldier serving overseas automatically received a 20 percent increase in base pay, while a paratrooper got an extra $50 a month as hazard pay. An American soldier serving in Europe or the Pacific in 1945 thus earned $720 a year at that year's prices, equal to about $13,320 today.