Chapter 8

Randall Knives at Smoke Bomb Hill

During this period of relentless testing, the knives from the W.D. Randall shop emerged as the knives. Randall knives were made in a semicustom shop with a few highly skilled workers that was operated by one man, W.D. “Bo” Randall. In addition to our personal experience, Randall’s knives were well-known in the community and had gained acclaim during World War II. Stories about hand-to-hand fights from World War II and more recent actions had became part of unit verbal history and were passed down to my generation, often firsthand. Therefore, the need for a reliable combat knife was well understood by those of us who paid attention to the veterans, which I made a point of doing.

Further, during the run up to the Vietnam War, there were many small actions wherein knives were decisive. The reports from the field—Latin America and South East Asia mostly—were unequivocally in support of the Randalls. Virtually every experienced NCO (noncommissioned officer, i.e., a sergeant) at Smoke Bomb Hill carried a leather-sheathed Randall on his belt, not on his equipment harness, so the knife would stay with him if he became separated from his gear.

A young soldier had to cut deep into his beer money to save up for a Randall, which was a considerable hardship. A Model 1 was priced at thirty-six dollars, a princely sum when commercial hunting knives were available for five bucks. Jump pay was only fifty-five dollars a month, thus paying for a Randall was a stretch. When I was still in training, more than one veteran told me, “You better get yourself a Randall.” I did, and I never regretted it.

The Model 14 Attack was a popular choice. With its 7.5-inch Bowie-style blade, overall sturdy construction, and well-thought-out design, it was a knife user’s knife. So too was the Model 1 All-Purpose Fighting Knife, a slimmer Bowie-style blade with a thinner tang and antecedents going back to World War II. The Model 1 more or less embodied the entire concept of a tactical knife in its name. It was an all-purpose knife and a fighting knife. The Randalls were forged of quarter-inch tool steel or well-tempered stainless. Although Randall’s stainless was accepted by many, the only broken Randall I ever saw was made of stainless.

Due to the high demand during this period, Randall had contracted with a firm in Solingen, Germany, to make blades, many of which were stainless. These blades were then fitted out at the Randall shop in Florida. The Solingen blades were clearly marked, but after all these years I have no recollection of whether the broken Randall was one of those with a Solingen blade. In any event, I have chosen only tool steel blades for my Randalls and have never been disappointed.

Both Randalls were used for making shelters, traps, bows, spears, and other primitive weapons and tools and in training for knife fighting and killing with the knife. In this combination of use they had no equals. The Model 14, with its thick, full tang construction, was the stronger of the two, easily capable of slashing through helicopter skin or ripping a man-sized hole through a barracks wall in fewer than ten minutes, as a certain fellow demonstrated one night after a sufficiency of whiskey during a discussion of Escape and Evasion methods. We didn’t manage to break a Model 1 either, but not for want of effort.

The Cuban Connection

A guy I used to know well, let’s call him Jesse, carried a modified Randall Model 1 concealed under his shirt while he was in civilian service. He was assigned a mission during the United States intervention in the Dominican Republic. The US Marines and 82nd Airborne had landed. There were firefights in progress, and Special Forces units were in the country for various missions, but most of the island at that time was relatively free of armed conflict.

Jesse had recently been discharged from the military and had taken service with a civilian organization closely related to the military. His first assignment was a solo mission to circulate in waterfront and beach areas and “acquire actionable intelligence” about the possible presence of Cuban provocateurs who were thought to be behind, or taking advantage of, the attempted coup and civil unrest that had sparked the US invasion. There was even the possibility that the famous Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara might be on the island.

The young ex-paratrooper was given a fishing rod and some fishing gear as part of his cover as a deepsea fisherman who was looking for a cheap charter to take out in search of marlin. His superior decided that Jesse’s 9mm Browning automatic couldn’t be adequately concealed under tropical civilian clothing, was inconsistent with his cover, and he “wouldn’t run into any trouble anyway.”

Jesse hit the waterfront armed only with a cut down Randall Model 1 in a clip sheath under his Hawaiian shirt, a collection of large fish hooks, a rough working knowledge of Spanish, and knowing nothing whatsoever about marlin or deep sea fishing. He was uncertain of his best approach. Should he just go into a bar and ask, “Dónde está Che?”

What? You thought all clandestine agents are equipped and trained like James Bond and those shadowy government agencies and intelligence services are ruthlessly efficient? We’re talking government agencies here, folks. Think Social Security Administration, DMV, or IRS.

To make a long story short, the young agent ran afoul of some bad guys in a waterfront bar. There were four of them. He didn’t know if they were Cuban Communists, Dominican rebels, or run-of-the-mill barflies. He tried talking his way out of the situation but got nowhere with his fish stories. They tagged him as a gringo spy. They had guns. He did not, which might have saved his life.

The shooting started in the barroom, and Jesse ran up the stairs to rooms on the second floor where ladies of the evening plied their trade. On his way to a window, out of which he planned to jump, he encountered three more men. One them pulled a revolver from his waistband, and another one reached for something in his pants, which could have been anything, or nothing. The third one was behind the first two, and Jesse couldn’t see if he was armed.

In a split second, Jesse decided to do what all paratroopers are trained to do. He attacked. He got his Randall in hand and managed to slash a way through the three men and to the window, where he did another thing paratroopers are trained to do—he jumped. Again drawing on his training, he executed a good PLF (parachute landing fall) and ran. Paratroopers, even ex-paratroopers, are really good at running. He ran for about two hours, losing his pursuers and eventually returning to report to his superior, “There might be some Cubans here.”

The Randalls were unique in their day. The designs were almost perfect. Forged of tool steel and tempered fairly soft, they were virtually unbreakable. The soft temper required them to be sharpened more often than the Bucks and other knives with a harder temper. But that was no problem because they were easy to sharpen with a small stone, even under field conditions. The Randalls hit the sweet spot—light and compact enough to carry at all times, strong enough to withstand extreme use, capable of taking a razor edge, and highly functional as a utility knife or a killing weapon. We didn’t call them tactical knives, as we had never heard the term, but that’s what they were. This nexus of need still defines the fixed blade tactical knife of today.

One thing that became crystal clear and remains true today is this: if a knife was not useful for everyday tasks, odds were it would be left in the barracks when on a mission or field training. I saw many more Fairbairn–Sykes daggers that lived in footlockers than were used, although one man, who had used his in combat, wouldn’t leave the barracks without it. Also, no matter if you could use it as a piton or a wrecking bar, if it was too big or heavy, it got left behind. Even then, soldiers were burdened with massive amounts of ammunition, weapons, radios, rations, water, and personal items.