King & Country U.S. Marine Corps Catalog (USMC) - Operation ToyBox Your Center For WW2 Miniatures

King & Country · The Pacific collection

U.S. Marine Corps figures

Riflemen, radio operators, corpsmen and tank crews. Explore the USMC sets through their equipment, their individual stories, and the campaigns that give them context.

USMC058 · Wet Weather Patrol. Four Marines, shown from two sides.

The historical setting

The US Marines in World War II

The Marine Corps’ WWII story runs from the defense of Wake Island to the long campaigns of Guadalcanal, the central Pacific and Okinawa. Getting ashore was only one problem. Holding an airfield, opening a route through jungle, bringing guns forward and carrying casualties back demanded different people and equipment. Those jobs are the most useful way to read this collection.

Four standout Marine subjects

Signature sets

The photographs, people and stories behind the miniatures.

From Suribachi to the cinema, these four releases give the collection some of its most distinctive subjects. The flag-raising set comes from King & Country’s earlier Sands of Iwo Jima (IWJ) range.

King & Country IWJ019 six-figure group raising the American flag on a rocky base

IWJ019 · Iwo Jima flag raising

Flag Raising Set

The diagonal flagpole and six straining figures translate Joe Rosenthal’s photograph into a three-dimensional group. He caught the second flag raising on Mount Suribachi on 23 February 1945, when a larger flag replaced the first. The photograph later inspired the Marine Corps War Memorial. Iwo Jima’s battle continued for weeks after this moment; the set captures a symbol of resolve, rather than the end of the fighting.

The battle behind the photograph →

National Archives photograph · Release reference

USMC034 · Sands of Iwo Jima

“Stryker”

King & Country’s sculpting inspiration is unusually specific here: a photograph of John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima. The maker says it used that image for the Marine’s pose, then named the figure after Wayne’s character. This is a small piece of film history inside the fighting range. Its appeal comes from recognizing the screen Marine in the stance, rather than identifying a real officer or a documented battlefield incident.

Read the maker’s inspiration →

USMC059 · Chesty Puller

Lewis “Chesty” Puller

The pipe, soft cap and pointing arm turn this release into a recognizable portrait. Puller commanded 1st Battalion, 7th Marines on Guadalcanal, earning his third Navy Cross there; his fourth followed at Cape Gloucester. King & Country presents him as a lieutenant colonel during the Pacific campaigns. The model draws on a real commander’s field appearance, while its gesture suggests the forceful leadership for which he became known.

Explore the Puller figure →

Marine Corps biography

King & Country USMC052 kneeling Marine handler beside a seated war dog

USMC052 · Marine war dog

Pacific War Dog

A seated dog beside a kneeling handler brings a different kind of vigilance to the collection. Marine war dogs worked as scouts, sentries and messengers; on Guam their senses helped handlers detect concealed danger. The miniature concentrates on the partnership, with the animal looking toward the man instead of attacking. King & Country names its dog “Sailor,” but the historical inspiration is the wider war-dog program, rather than a verified portrait of one wartime animal.

Explore the dog and handler →

NPS: war dogs on Guam

The illustrated catalog

USMC set catalog

Set photographs, history and a review of each release.

1941–1945 · Across the Pacific

Major Pacific campaigns

A reef-fringed atoll, a flooded jungle and a defended ridge were not the same battlefield. The campaigns below explain why the collection ranges from amphibious armor to a Marine listening to a radio or helping a wounded man. Marine operations depended on Navy transport and gunfire, air power, Army formations and the work of island communities; the Pacific war was never the story of one service alone.

DECEMBER 1941

Wake Island

Marine defenders, naval personnel and civilian workers resisted Japanese attacks before the island fell. Wake belongs to the opening defensive phase of the war, before the amphibious offensives represented by much of this collection.

AUGUST 1942 – FEBRUARY 1943

Guadalcanal & the Solomons

The struggle for Henderson Field depended on fighting ashore, in the air and at sea. Marines and later Army formations faced supply shortages as well as Japanese attacks. Puller’s battalion fought here, but the weapons of a later-war USMC figure should not automatically be carried back into August 1942.

1943–1944

Bougainville & Cape Gloucester

These operations formed part of the Allied effort to isolate Rabaul. On New Britain, monsoon rain and flooded ground made movement, supply and health major problems. Wet Weather Patrol and the pack howitzer crew bring those conditions and supporting tasks into focus.

NOVEMBER 1943 – FEBRUARY 1944

Tarawa & the Marshalls

At Betio, the reef complicated the approach of landing craft while LVTs carried assault troops toward the shore. The costly Tarawa battle sharpened amphibious planning. Armored amphibians such as the LVT(A)-1 added another kind of support during the subsequent Marshall Islands operations.

JUNE – AUGUST 1944

Saipan, Tinian & Guam

The Marianas campaign brought major airfields within reach of Japan. Marines and Army troops fought on Saipan and Guam; the struggle also devastated local communities. Guam is particularly important to the history of Marine war dogs, whose patrol work relied on detection rather than a visible target.

SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 1944

Peleliu

Well-prepared Japanese positions in coral ridges turned an expected short operation into prolonged fighting. The 1st Marine Division and Army’s 81st Infantry Division confronted an enemy using depth and concealment. Small-unit assaults, supporting weapons and casualty evacuation became inseparable parts of the battle.

FEBRUARY – MARCH 1945

Iwo Jima

The 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions fought against an extensive defensive system. The flag raising on Suribachi came early in a battle that continued for weeks. Navy corpsmen and stretcher parties represent work that the familiar summit photograph does not show. Read our Iwo Jima history →

APRIL – JUNE 1945

Okinawa

Marines and Army troops fought a long land campaign while the fleet endured air attack offshore. Rain, defended ridges and the catastrophic suffering of Okinawan civilians distinguish it from the popular image of a brief beach assault. Victory on the shore did not settle the battle inland.

Campaign chronology: Marine Corps History Division; National Park Service; the battle for Saipan.

LVT-1 amphibious tractors heading toward Betio at first light on 20 November 1943 — LVT-1s approaching Betio on 20 November 1943. These transport tractors preceded the turreted LVT(A)-1 represented by USMC023. U.S. Marine Corps photograph 63909; public domain. Reproduced in Across the Reef by Joseph H. Alexander.

A Marine 75mm pack howitzer firing during the advance on the Cape Gloucester airfields — An 11th Marines 75mm pack howitzer supports the advance on Cape Gloucester’s airfields. The gun’s compact size did not mean its task was secondary. U.S. Marine Corps photograph 12203; public domain. Reproduced in Cape Gloucester: The Green Inferno by Bernard C. Nalty.

Figure details

About the figures

Weapons and equipment

The long Garand and shorter M1 carbine share a designation, not a cartridge or purpose. The radioman’s SCR-300 entered production in 1943. The turret on USMC023 identifies an armored amphibian, rather than the LVT-1 transport shown in the Tarawa photograph. These details are more useful than assigning every green-uniformed figure to the same island.

Machine-gun and artillery crews

Three Marines work the pack howitzer; one man operates a water-cooled Browning. One release includes a crew, another concentrates on the firing position. The distinction matters when reading the scene: ammunition carriers, communications and observation remain part of the historical job even when a boxed set does not include them.

Corpsmen and casualty evacuation

Dragging a casualty, carrying him over a shoulder, giving aid and moving a stretcher are four different subjects. Together they describe a process that could continue from a shell hole to a beach, a landing craft and a hospital ship. The corpsman was a Navy medical specialist serving with Marines.

Chesty Puller

Chesty Puller has a documented biography. Most of the range’s other men are anonymous interpretations of a role. A photograph of a gun crew or war dog can explain that role without proving that the miniature was sculpted after those particular people or animals.

Patrol figures

Marine patrols and war dogs

Rain changes the outline of the poncho-clad patrol, hiding equipment under cloth. At Cape Gloucester it also flooded kitchens and fighting positions. A wet-weather figure is therefore more than a uniform variation: it opens a part of the campaign that photographs of a landing alone cannot explain.

The dog and handler suggest another kind of work. Marine dogs served as scouts, messengers and sentries, using senses their handlers could not duplicate. The seated dog in the miniature is a partner waiting with his handler, not a generic symbol of aggression.

A Marine war dog resting beneath a camouflage shelter on Guam — A Marine war dog rests beneath camouflage material. Dogs served as scouts, messengers and sentries; they were not trained simply to attack. U.S. National Archives photograph 80-G-239419; public domain, via the National Park Service.

Historical reading & photograph credits

The period photographs reproduced here are credited U.S. government images. Product photographs are King & Country reference images. Each set article identifies its release source and separates depicted contents from additional display figures.