Chapter 7

Knife Testing and Training at Smoke Bomb Hill

I have no idea what, if any, knife testing was done in World War II. But in the early sixties we put our knives through a wide range of what many would consider extreme field tests—the kind of things I have heard many knifemakers criticize as unrealistic, inappropriate, and abusive uses of a knife. I view those comments as uninformed and coming from people who have no experience of armed conflict or harsh field conditions or from those who do not wish to stand behind their knives as advertised. Such comments are valid only if the maker advertises his or her knives to be used solely for dressing game, kitchen use, or as collector’s items. Any knife billed as combat knife or survival knife should bear up under severe use. Otherwise it isn’t worth the weight of carrying it. Worse, a knife that fails when you need it might cost you your life. At that time and place, we wanted knives we could rely upon. We wanted knives for extreme situations because sometimes our lives were pretty damn extreme.

Some of the testing we engaged in and a little bit of the training is described below. I am NOT advising anyone to do these tests. In fact, DO NOT DO THESE THINGS. If you do, it’s your responsibility, not mine. Some of the gnarly old vets got a good laugh out of our hijinks. We were young, extremely physically fit, loaded with testosterone, and soon to put our lives at risk. This combination makes for guys who can be . . . well, a little reckless and high-spirited. Maybe you were thinking of the Quiet Professionals, as Special Forces soldiers came to be called? That came later, as did much else, including the loss of some high spirits and the proof of the value of our testing and practice with the knife.

I REPEAT: DO NOT DO THESE THINGS.

One of our favorite tests was to take a knife in each hand and leap into a vigorous airborne pushup, the kind where both feet leave the ground and you do a handstand, landing on the tips of the blades with soles of your boots facing the sky, sort of like jumping over a large imaginary barrel blades first. Often we did this with only one knife, landing in the position for a one-handed push up. Mostly we did this in the dirt, on wooden walkways, or on blacktop streets. Occasionally we tried it on concrete sidewalks, although this, more often than not, produced a broken blade or tip. In our small group, anyone at any time could yell, “Hit it!”—an ingrained jump school command—and everyone was expected to hit it and land with their knife, or knives, point first.

Another favorite was to run full speed and tackle a tree—knife first. Sometimes we used a knife in each hand, but more often we used only one knife. We did this both with a reverse grip for an overhand stab and a forward grip, as in a thrust, albeit a flying thrust. The full impact of our bodies traveling at speed concentrated a terrific amount of force on the tip of the blade. Think of a linebacker hitting the ball carrier as hard as he can. Only in our case, the ball carrier was an immovable tree, and we hit with the point of our knives, not our shoulders.

These activities most often took place at night—occasionally when we’d had a drink or three and spirits were running high. I am informed that today’s SF soldiers are all quiet professionals who never drink or get out of hand. Be that as it may, we were a rowdy bunch and often raised three kinds of hell between sunset and sunrise. Anyway, the idea behind these tests was that the impact would be similar to that of a hard thrust into an opponent’s chest, maybe through web gear containing loaded magazines, and would serve as good training. Or something like that. We broke a lot of knives, got some cuts and bruises, and learned which knives would absorb this treatment without breaking and how to execute powerful thrusts.

We also used knives in Escape and Evasion practice to rip out the mortar between the blocks in cement block and brick walls using the back of the tip to remove the blocks or bricks and escape the room. We jimmied open various kinds of locked doors and went to the junkyard to cut through trunk lids of abandoned cars—from the inside—each of us taking a turn with the other guys outside the junked car yelling encouragement, taking bets on time, and holding the lid closed. We quickly learned that no matter how good the knife, it took a lot of muscle to cut through a car, that auto bodies are tough, and that it was more efficient to jimmy open the lock. Of course we knew we could simply kick out the rear seat from the truck. But the idea was to simulate being taken prisoner. We wanted to try all options. We did the same thing with junked refrigerators. We drove knives into trees and stood on them. We pounded them between rocks on the sides of cliffs to serve as emergency pitons.

One of my friends, a little guy but very strong, who had been a gymnast in school was able to climb the side of a wooden barracks using two knives as climbing devices. He would stab one into the wall and support himself on that one, then stab the other higher up and pull himself up to it. He repeated the process until he reached the roof of our old wooden barracks buildings, all the time looking stylish, as if he were in a gymnastics competition. A few others not so gracefully managed to follow our gymnast up the sides of wooden buildings, then brick buildings, by wedging blade tips into the space between bricks to serve as climbing aids.

The whole thing turned into a game. Many of us carried our knives at all times, even off duty, and took every opportunity to find new ways to stress them. Stabbing a blade into any available surface and doing pull-ups on it was an everyday pastime. We’re talking fixed blades here. No one ever considered doing any of these things with the folders of that time. We might have been a little crazy, but we weren’t stupid. Well, not that stupid.

We also threw our knives. Yeah, I know. You’re never supposed to throw your knife. We did anyway. You might also if you thought you might ever need to do so during a hostile encounter. We threw knives at trees, walls, scrap sheet metal, and junked auto bodies—anything we could make them stick into. Sometimes when spirits were running high we threw them at each other in a kind of dodge-em game. Then one bright lad got the idea of using handheld boards as targets. That was fun. We threw knives while sitting on our bunks, sitting cross-legged on the ground, and lying on our backs or sides. We threw from standing positions and while running, from somersaults, body rolls, and PLFs (parachute landing falls)—daytime, nighttime, it was all the same to us. We also practiced diving over obstacles, rolling right into a full thrust or a series of slashes. Of course we did a similar kind of training with handguns, but that’s another story.

Little of this was part of the standard training program, which at that time was still in the process of evolving. Most of it was done on our own time. We figured it was a good idea to invest our spare time in what might turn out to be survival skills. We got some encouragement in this pastime and our other kniferelated activities from a surprising source.

During this period there was a good bit of semiformal training conducted by various experts. For example, my first instruction in knife fighting came from a former member of the Hungarian National Fencing Team. There was an afternoon class and a night class for the three or four of us who were more dedicated. We used metal tent stakes for our full speed, full power sparring and collected many scrapes and bruises. We also learned caution and developed excellent reflexes when we later used live steel blades.

A few of the old hands who were originally from Hungary or other Eastern European countries and had escaped from the Soviet Block encouraged us in our efforts. Some of them had been Hungarian Freedom Fighters who had attacked Russian tanks with bottles of flaming gasoline on the streets of Budapest. Others had fought in various wars and revolts. One old fellow—he must have been almost forty years old, which was ancient to me at that time—told me the Russians had a top secret unit they called Spetsnaz that was something like SF, and they did everything we were doing and more in their training with heavy emphasis on unarmed combat and combat with edged weapons. He told a couple of us some graphic tales of Spetsnaz activities and encouraged us to get as much training in these things as we possibly could. Considering that there was an excellent chance of our facing the Spetsnaz in combat, we were inspired and motivated to do exactly that.

The knives we used were from many makers, but few stood out in any way. Buck knives of that era were tempered hard and outstanding at holding an edge. However, that edge holding came with a high price; the blades were brittle and broke with little lateral pressure. The ability to take a keen edge is paramount, but holding that edge was not as important to us as strength. We could sharpen our knives, but a broken blade was a disaster.

Randall with a SF Beret.

Later on—in the late sixties, as I recall—Gerber got a horse in the race with its wasp-waisted dagger. It was modeled on the Fairbairn–Sykes dagger, a killing knife not a utility or survival knife. There were a fair number of double-edged daggers around during the early sixties, some from various European makers, others unmarked. In general, double-edged daggers had few takers among my friends and acquaintances, except those who were impressed by the looks of one or had a need for a single-purpose knife. There were those who favored daggers for “night visits” and some who carried daggers in addition to their utility knives, reasoning that it was better to save one knife for actual hand-to-hand use to keep its edges razor sharp and untouched. As well as the current production knives (or replicas—I’m not sure which), there were a few original World War II–era Fairbairn–Sykes and V44 daggers in Group, but those were in the hands of the older vets.

Some spoke well of the dagger as a killing weapon, others did not. I knew one older vet who always kept a Fairbairn–Sykes close at hand in uniform or civilian clothing, on or off duty. Another World War II vet told a story about a Fairbairn–Sykes that “broke off in a Nazi,” and he thought they were total junk. It is my understanding that wartime production of the Fairbairn–Sykes, like that of the KA-BAR, varied a great deal. Still other Fairbairn–Sykes were treated as legacy items or, considering that some of them had been bloodied in combat, as revered relics.

The general run of commercial hunting knives failed in one respect or another. Almost all of them broke easily, and some wouldn’t even take a good edge, let alone hold it. Many of the designs had upswept trailing points, which limited their utility. The stainless steel of that time was, for the most part, miserable stuff that was hardly able to take a decent edge and useful mainly for getting a brilliant shine on a blade to impress the consumer and preventing rust in a household dishwasher. Plain carbon steel kitchen knives provided all-around better service than most so-called hunting knives of the period, at least those we got our hands on. But kitchen knives were not strong enough for our purposes.