Although many in the US foresaw war with Japan, when the blow fell in December 1941, the US possessions in the Pacific were far from ready. Troop levels and supplies of equipment were not adequate on the smaller outposts such as Wake Island and Guam, and the defence of the largest, the Philippines, was entrusted in large measure to local forces which had not had sufficient training or the modern equipment to meet the threat. Although the defence of these territories was brave and not without success, in the end the troops that defended them were all subdued, and many thousands would find themselves as prisoners of war, subjected to the most horrific abuse and neglect until finally liberated in 1945.

Such men as faced the early Japanese onslaught have previously been depicted by Strelets in two sets as listed below, both of which had issues with accuracy which we will compare with this set shortly, but both those sets provided a lot of men advancing or firing their weapon, which is great. This third set has virtually no one firing their weapon, and is instead focused mainly on hand-to-hand combat. We find several poses thrusting forward with a bayonet or apparently using their firearm as a club. One man in the top row is delivering a kick – whether against an enemy soldier or something more structural is anyone’s guess – so it looks like most of these figures can very definitely see the whites of their opponent’s eyes. Such close-quarters combat was fairly rare by the mid-20th century, but it was certainly taught, although no bayonet drill every recommended stabbing down from above the shoulder, especially when standing on just one leg, and clubbing an opponent with the butt of a submachine gun is a pretty desperate act too. We found it hard to guess what the figure at the end of the first row is doing – parrying some sort of sword blow perhaps? All in all the poses are far from ideal, and would be a bizarre choice were it not for the fact that two much more conventional sets had already been released, though these new poses are at least nice and dynamic. As so often, the officer figure has been delivered charging into battle with pistol outstretched, a classic but also not a particularly common pose.

In 1941 the typical US rifle squad was made up of a squad leader, a deputy, two men serving an automatic rifle, and eight riflemen. To a degree this structure is reflected in the weapons found in this set, which has four copies of each pose, so we can image the box providing us with four rifle squads. Eight of the poses (the top two rows) all carry rifles, which are mostly hard to identify precisely, but where detail is clear they look to be Springfields, which is fine. The first man in the third row carries a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle), which is also great, although he lacks a second to assist him with ammunition etc. The next three men all carry a Thompson submachine gun. Certainly squad leaders and their assistants sometimes carried such a weapon, though it is a little over-represented here, but Thompsons might also be issued to riflemen if the need arose, so the spread here is not too bad. In all cases the weapon is the later model with a straight magazine, when at this date many would have had the earlier drum magazine, so while not wrong it is not the most typical choice of weapon model. Finally as we have said there is an officer, armed with nothing more than a pistol, which is correct for 1941 but hardly the most effective choice in any battle, quite apart from screaming to enemy snipers that you are a prestige target. Had one of the Thompsons been the older model, and another had been replaced by a man carrying BAR magazines, we would have been happier, but the spread of weapons is not the worst we have seen.

In terms of accuracy the previous two sets had some failings, and some of these have been fixed with this one, although there are also new ones to highlight. The first of these is the headgear, for while the usual M1917 dished steel helmet is once again correctly worn here, three of the figures (all in our top row) wear nothing more than the campaign hat, which was already only limited issue by 1941, and was certainly not intended for conflict. One such man even has his helmet slung on his back, so we can think of no reason why anyone would wear this hat when going into battle. At a stretch you could imagine these men as being in training, but even that is pretty unlikely, so it looks like the designer wanted to show interesting clothing or kit, regardless of whether it was actually seen in battle. Another man wears a helmet but has his campaign hat slung on his body, for no conceivable reason, and none have the overseas cap that was replacing the ‘Montana peak’ at this time. The rest of the tropical uniform – a shirt tucked into trousers – is correct (in warm stations tropical uniform was worn all year round), and this set resolves a problem of the earlier ones by showing the men wearing long gaiters. As these were roundly disliked by the troops, many chose to lose or forget them, so the few figures here without any gaiters are also authentic.

The kit worn by these men is quite light, as you would expect for these early campaigns. All wear the standard ammunition belt, although where visible this only has four pouches on each side rather than five, probably due to the difficulty of sculpting something so small. We did say all the men wear this, which means those with the Thompsons do not have suitable pouches for the magazines, and the man with the BAR also lacks the appropriate ammunition pouches, which is quite a problem (especially when he does not have an assistant to help). The officer, despite having no more than a pistol, has an extra bandolier of ammunition round his trunk, making him by far the best supplied of the men, which is a bit of a farce. Although there are no packs, most poses have the large haversack under the left arm, which we thought might have been less popular than this when in action. Finally, all have a single water bottle, and while some might have carried a second, this is still fine.

The style of these figures is similar to the preceding sets, which is to say reasonably detailed and with decent proportions, but not exceptional. A number of the figures are quite flat, which is always a danger when sculpting close-combat poses, and the two gentlemen in the top row with one foot resting on the other leg are particularly cumbersome and unrealistic. Uniform and weapon detail is fair, although there are some glitches like the magazines of the Thompsons, which are much wider than they should be. However unlike the earlier sets, these weapons are of the correct size overall. Little details like the absence of a bipod for the BAR (which was common) are appreciated, as is the relative lack of flash, although there is some in a few areas.

The look of these figures closely matches the earlier sets, and the corrections to uniform and weaponry are welcome, but the wearing of the campaign hat in action is very hard to understand, and, like the Airfix Great War Americans, is very hard to get around. The other major feature here is the many close-order fighting poses, many of which are pretty unlikely, or at least not something to make any drill sergeant proud. As we have said, this is mitigated when seen alongside the earlier offerings, so it makes more sense as an expansion to those rather than standalone, and as such this set certainly broadens the available range of poses. This is a set with many peculiarities, and it will be interesting to see how many customers see them as endearing, and how many as just annoying.