Wet Weather Patrol

Korea is remembered by Marines for two things — the terrible cold of the Chosin Reservoir, and the rain. When the summer monsoon broke over the peninsula, the hills and rice paddies dissolved into mud, streams became torrents, and a patrol meant hours of soaked misery long before any contact. After the war of movement ended in 1951, the fighting settled into a static slugging match over named hills and outposts along the line, much of it done on patrol — feeling for the enemy in the dark and the wet. These Marines, hunched in dripping ponchos as they move through the paddy country, are that side of the Korean War.

K&C gives the set as a four-man patrol strung out in the rain: an officer with an M1 Carbine, a BAR gunner, and two riflemen with M1 Garands, every man shrouded in a poncho over a camouflage-covered M1 helmet. The sculpting of the wet, heavy folds is the whole point of the piece. For a Korean War diorama it stands beside W. Britain's Chesty Puller at Chosin, and it shares the same Marine kit — the BAR, the Garand, the carbine — with the standalone Marine with the BAR and the walking Marine officer.