The Marines had to fight to get to the fight. In 1917 the Commandant, Major General George Barnett, went to the Secretary of the Navy with an argument that was really about survival: this war would be fought on land, and if the Corps had no part in it, the Corps would die. Josephus Daniels took it to the President, who signed the order transferring Marines to the Army. Barnett got his regiment into the first convoy — the 5th Marines, seventy officers and 2,869 men, sailed from New York on 14 June 1917. Pershing, who had not asked for them, considered putting them on the docks as stevedores and port guards.

This is what they looked like when they arrived, and almost none of it survived contact. Eight figures in forest green under the campaign hat with its Montana peak — the same hat the artillery are wearing, and the army took those away and cut them up. The steel helmet came. The overseas cap came. In a diorama they belong beside the US infantry of 1918 from the same range, who show you what they turned into. The Marine at Belleau Wood is one of these men a year later, and you would not know him.

Tradition of London model 816. 54mm, white metal, hand-painted in gloss enamel. Eight-figure set — an officer, a sergeant and six privates, 1917. Supplied in the Tradition Classic Red Box. Allow 2–3 weeks delivery.