The Military Misconception

There seems to be a mass delusion among the general public and some knife collectors that any knife ever touched, carried, or coveted by a military person therefore becomes a "military knife". Under this criteria, stretched far enough, everything made since 1900 or so is a military knife. Well, that is ridiculous. When everything is "military" then nothing is gained by using that term.

This confusion does not run rampant in arms collecting, incllluding bayonets; military issue patterns have long been studied, are well documented and most are property marked.

A Caution

None of these remarks should be taken as criticism of whatever a collector wants to collect, If one wants to collect "association knives" such as Australian jungle daggers or British Sykes-Fairbairn stilettos then go for it.

So collect what you will; let us just sing on the same page of the music.

Primary and Secondary, an Obsolete and Irrelevant Categorization

In classic knife texts, now obsolete, such as Harold Peterson's American Knives, the distinction was between primary and secondary; the primary, being knives known to have been officially designed and issued and the secondary being martial type knives brought from home by the combatants.

A well known example of an issue design is the Armory made hunting knife carried during the Indian Wars. The secondary are best exemplified by the multiferous variety of Bowie knives carried during our War Between the States.

Trench Knives used in World War I easily fit into this sort out.

Where the secondary-primary sortout breaks down is its use when considering the vast number of varieties of knives used by the members of the U.S. Armed Forces since the beginning of U.S. participation in World War II. When the runup to WW II began, there was only one pattern of fighting knife in the inventory, this standard U.S. combat knife was the Mark I trench knife with a brass knuckles hilt adopted in 1918. In addition to being useless as a tool for field living the design required too much scarce brass to allow new manufacturing for the Army.

Will A Functional Sort Do?

Military knives fall into two major funcitonal classifications; knives optimized for fighting, and those intended for general use for working and field living. Today the first are known as combat knives and the latter as tactical knives. They may be fought with as a last defensive measure but only in extreme circumstances. In modern times it is not reasonable and rational to issue pure fighting knives to soldiers in general. Leave their use to highly trained specialists in sneak and peek and sabotage. Although thought of of as a fighting knife, the famous knife pattern generally referred to colloquially as the "k-bar", originally designed by the USMC during WWII, now a armed forces wide issue, is officially designated as "Knife, Fighting-Utility".

So if herein I mention a fighting knife, it is meant as an example, not a definition.

Sorting Them Out

Having eliminated the primary-secondary sort out and the functional sort out as both imprecise and ambiguous, how then, to sort out all the myriad of official, documented, and undocumented knives attributed to and used by US military personnel. (Note the distinction, the US military is an organization, not a person, so cannot use anything literally)

I set forth here a classification based on obvious physical characteristics, and known history, chief among which are:

• a: who made it,
• b: where was it made,
• c: how was it made,
• d: when was it made,
• e: what was it made from,
• f: who designed ir, and
• g: very important, who eas it made for?

The more of these questions v=can be answered, the more precise the classification.

The following is set forth as a rational and useful scheme of categorization.

Some Definitions

Let us begin with definitions and thoughts therein on the topic.

Adopted See Official

Association Knives: Those knives of allied nations, which were often carried and used by U.S personnel in their duties. Most are highly prized because of their association with special troops; OSS, Commandos, and Raiders, but most of them were never made or stocked by the US. A few exceptions were made by the OSS; two entire books by John Brunner and Keith Melton cover the subject thoroughly. Paradoxically, authors keep showing these foreign items in works on US cutlery. Well, stop it! We have plenty of our own patterns to collect. There is an excellent book covering by Ron Flook* covering British items.

  *(See review on amazon.com).

Branch Wide: as ompared eith service wide. the Signal Corps is an example of a branch which designed, procured, and used its own designs,as did the Navy's Bureau of Aviation and Medical Department.

Commercial Patterns: Knives made on the same dies and machinery as prewar items. May or not be militarized (c.f.) but are still recognizable as civil designs.

Documented Items: Have a paper trail that proves they were issued. Stock catalogs, box markings, specifications, etc. (see official)

Field Made: Closely related to home shop (see below) is this group. These vary from items made by a service person to kill time, to sell or trade to visiting troops in transit, etc. Many of these can be distinguished by the sometime use of service issue blades. But the most distinct feature is the fine fit and finish, after all, they were made in fully equipped machine shops, afloat or ashore by trained machinists and the use of various salvaged metals and Plexiglas from wrecked aircraft. Some were made at stateside stations.

Fighting: Optimized for fighting purposes and often so specializes as to preclude any usefulness for field living.

Home Shop: Items made in the US by civilians for sale or gift to service personnel. One off oe may vaey noticeably one from another. Often made as a part-time endeauvour. These vary in fit and finish from saber knives to the crudest hunk beaten out of a bolt. Most of them are unmarked and are not now or ever will be documented. How can you prove such a home shop knife was or was not militarily used? People still beat them in their gatage shops.

Militarized: Slight changes in commercial patterns to expedite production and eliminate strategic materials such as brass or copper, and adding of non-reflective finishes. Examples are theRH35 and RH36 hunting knives made by Pal Blade Co.

Official, Adopted, or Standardized: Therefore documented or well known by secondary evidence such as contemporary letters or period photographs.

Pattern: A specific design of knife made to a specific set of drawings or specifications by the same or many manufacturers and which are all identical. Major examples are the Navy Mark 2's "k-bars") which are all identical except for the markings.)

Private Purchase: This includes a lot of miscellany from Woodman's Pals sold in the PXes for "jungle living" in the Pacific Area to home shop knives made in back lot garages.

PX Knives: General all-inclusive term to include the ship's stores. The Army and Air Force Post Exchanges are civilian run department store-like enterprises chartered to sell items at cost plus to personnel living on military installations. Items sold therein are mostly not distinctive, being the same goods sold to the public at large in civilian stores. Though a there are a couple of patterns attributed to manufacture for the PX system, this category prably could be totted up on one hand.

Service Wide: An item available and stocked for issue to more than one branch of a service of the Army or Navy; The Army Air Corps of WW II was legally a branch of the Army though it was almost as large as the rest of the Army. The post 1947 Air Force has never had a branch structure such as Quartermasters or Ordnance in which officers were commissioned.

Standardized: (see Official

Theatre Knives: These are knives made overseas by commercial firms for sale to the troops. These knives were made in quantity firms on production.

Most of this materiel is long known and includes numerous copies of the AAF machete pequeños made in Australia and New Zealand.

Some put field made in here but I think the distinction is valid

Type: A general class of knife for the same purpose but not identical in form or pattern. Examples are the Navy Mark 1 knives which vary considerably but are all five-inch blade hunting knives.

Unit Issue: Items bought by individual units of a military or civil pattern for issue to their members. The Second Marine Raiders and their "Gung Ho Knives" and the First Special Service Forces V-42 Daggers are examples.

Utility or Working: This applies both to sheath knives and to a specific type of pocketknife with a standard blade arrangement (scout or camping knife.)

The Categories Defined With Examples

It would be tedious and boring to list everything in a category. If you have read this far, you are sufficiently interested in the subject and intelligent enough to grasp the purpose of categories. It is just to sort out in a rational manner the subjects under discussion.

I have spent forty some years using and learning to use what once were called library catalogs and other computerized records how collectively known as databases and the first rule is, sort as you go.

For it is not easy to do. I have spent years researching and trying to understand the rationale behind the placement of similar books and data on similar items in different files.

If you want to get all you need you must know the file structure in order to ask the right questions.

And cutlery and edged tools are just not that complex subjects. Take a look at the Federal Supply Classification Schedule sometimes. We are only dealing here with items in about five Federal classes.

Cutlery Classification Categories Catechism

A. Service Wide -

These are Government Wide Patterns

e most well known example of is our old friend, the ubiquitious  all metal General Purpose Pocket Knife, adopted in 1945 and made under MIL-K-818 since the forties. The second most common would be the Third Pattern Pilot's Survival Knife with the saw-back, first developed for naval issue, now a government wide GSA stock item.

B. Branch Wide Patterns

The best known examples are the designs of thee US Army Signal Corps: the LC14-B brush cutting knife of WWII, and the TL-29 Electrician's Knife which is now goverment wide stocked by the GSA. Pocketknife.

C. Unit Patterns

The most-well known is the specially designed V-42 stiletto. Much less well known is the Fifth Air Force jungle knife issued in the SW Pacific: small choppers, worn strapped to the calf of the leg.

D. Commercial Patterns

1. Militarized. There are a lot of USN sheath knives in this group.

2. Non militarized. Pure commercial. Usually come with a story that "Uncle Fred who is dead kept it in the head." Judging from ebay listings many things made since 1950 was carried in WW II!

Just because it was in Uncle Fred's junk box discovered after his demise does not mean he brought it home from the war. Lots of surplus out there. Such claims are often made about French issue Senegalese Machetes widely surplused circa 1960 and Martin machetes made in Belgium. Think about that one!

E. Military Market

This is where we find all those many well made favorites of collectors: John Ek, Gerber,and Randall, nowadays Ontario, and a multitude of others. What distinguishes these from militarized is they were specifically designed and marketed for martial use. Secondarily and in peace time they were sold in the general market.

There are some very nicely made and interesting items in this category.

F. Field Made and Home Shop.

See the discussion above under definitions. These are really difficult to sort out, but if you like these, there are a lot to be had relatively cheaply compared to others.

G. Theatre Knives

The distinction between these and service or branch wide patterns is they were sold to GIs not issued.

The jungle daggers of the SW Pacific often have property marks; they were both issued and sold on the Auatralian market and so fall into the service wide category, the adopted category, and/or the association category. They have been seen in photos being worn by both Army and Marine personnel on the islands. Their sheaths have the standard US M1910 belt hooks along with belt slots.

H. Association Knives

See definition.

I. Captured Cutlery

Self explanatory. Also not apropo to a US focuesed collection.

The Germans did not carry their daggers as field knives, those were strictly ceremonial items. If someone insists that we consider an SS dagger a US military item because GI Joe was photographed wearing a looted one in 1945, then that person is simply deluded.

(c) 2005 Charles Franklin Carter