Hello Friends,

Hope all is well wherever this message finds you. As some of you know, my Dad died very unexpectedly about 8 months ago. I am just now working up the will to go through some of his personal belongings--still don't want to remove anything from Mom's house at the moment.

Anyways, when I was going through some of his files and collections, I came across a homemade wood knife that was clearly made by my Grandpa in WW2 that says on the wood blade 'My training knife for combat'. In old time lettering.

Has anyone else ever heard of this? Did some soldiers expecting to go to theater craft a knife for training other then my kin? Was this something they were encouraged to do??? I found this trinket to be extremely fascinating and also insightful as to how many men, in my case my grandfather, who grew up on the family farm, was preparing for 'the horrors of war'.

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Rather be outdoors

Perhaps it was his knife used while he was in boot camp for basic training and not meant for combat? A souvenir from the training days?.

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Bill

A few pictures would be great. Not that I'm an expert but I'd just love to see it. There may have been a shortage of actual knives and the wooden versions were used for training.

Going through my stepdads old shed I found a Sykes Fairbairn Fighting Knife in rough shape similar to this one:



He was in the Navy during WWII and his brother was a Marine. Who knows, details are lost to time...

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Isaiah 41:10

They make blue plastic/rubber training knives today..... WWII wood makes sense.

There have been a number of threads on the need for knives in WWII and like M1 carbines everyone was making them...............

My Dad took a personal knife a 7" Bowie style ( told me he bought it in Calf or Mexico) to the S Pacific when shipped out with the Coast Guard.

Bo Randall couldn't make enough knives to fill his orders during WW2. So some Randall knives were made in Springfield, Massachusetts by another knife maker.

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I remember my dad had a hand carved knife, maybe 10 inches long. I can't remember if he made it over in the So. Seas in the navy or as a Boy Scout project. It was really cool. He was far more talented than me in these things! Class Valedictorian, passed up college to join the Navy out of High School, etc. (USA first, college later.) I wish I knew what happened to that knife...Jeff

As late as when I was in in the early 1970's coastguardsmen were supplying their own knives. A must have at all times if you are a boatswain mate working on small boats (LSTs/LCVPs/LCIs in WWII Pacific Theater) or anything to do with lines on a boat or ship! Buck recently rebladed and reconditioned my 110 that I have been carrying since I bought it at the Homestead AFB px in 1972!

Any history of your Dad's service in the Pacific Theater you care to share?