U.S. Marine Standing Throwing Grenade, Belleau Wood, 1918

The United States went to war in 1918 without a hand grenade it could trust. The Mk I, adopted the year before, was advertised as the simplest and most fool-proof grenade ever built — and proved the opposite. Arming it took a precise sequence that men trained on the British Mills bomb or the French F1 kept skipping, so grenades left the hand unlit; a German could pick one up, prime it properly, and throw it back. It was pulled from service before the war ended and replaced by the Mk II "pineapple." In the meantime American troops threw Allied grenades — which is almost certainly what this Marine has cocked behind his ear. He is caught mid-shout, weight back, a rifle in his left hand and the grenade drawn back in his right — the instant before a rush into cover, because in a wood you threw first and moved second. It pairs naturally with the Marine whose American weapon actually did work, the NCO with the M1911, and it sets up what came once the range closed: the shotgun at the treeline and the clubbed rifle among the trunks. Stage him a pace ahead of them, grenade in the air, throwing into the German-held wood. W. Britain model 13096. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.