For huge numbers of Japanese soldiers the deadliest enemy in the Pacific was not the Americans but hunger and disease. As US forces advanced by "island-hopping" — seizing the islands they needed and simply bypassing the strongest Japanese garrisons, cutting them off from supply — hundreds of thousands of men were left stranded on jungle islands the war had passed by. With no ships able to reach them, they starved. Across the Pacific, sickness and starvation killed far more Japanese troops than enemy fire did; on some bypassed islands the garrisons were reduced to skeletons before they ever saw an American. An officer scanning the horizon might be watching for an attack that never came, on an island the world had forgotten.

The officer stands in tropical field kit — white shirt, breeches and the sun cap with its neck flap against the Pacific heat — binoculars raised to his eyes, a sheathed katana in his other hand marking his rank and status. He anchors a garrison scene: set him with the Command Group above him, the Soldier on Guard Duty watching the perimeter, and the Machine Gunner dug in nearby. In a diorama an officer with binoculars gives a scene its focus — every other figure seems to be waiting on what he sees.

Model: JN069 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set