Cattaraugus Q225 ~

chiral.grolim: Is that a Scrapyard knife I see in those pictures? How are they? I like their designs & was after a Swamp Rat Battle Rat for a while. Still looking for it, but I'm heading to Europe soon (since I'm landing in England, I can't really bring much in the way of blades with me).
 
We would grab the folding knife as fast as we could get them. In fact at least two supply sergeants i had in the 60's used to award them to soldiers who did a good job on detail in the supply room. I don't remember anyone giving a rats patooti about the fixed blade knife. However I can think of a supply sergeant who would have colected them and sold them on the outside. But I only served 24 years as an 11B and 19D so what do I know.
 
Wolfeye said:
chiral.grolim: Is that a Scrapyard knife I see in those pictures? How are they? I like their designs & was after a Swamp Rat Battle Rat for a while. Still looking for it, but I'm heading to Europe soon (since I'm landing in England, I can't really bring much in the way of blades with me).
Click to expand...

Yup, that's a 511, I briefly reviewed the knives in comparison to each other with specs of each, so there are some pics of all here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...n-to-SYKCO-511-SRKW-RatManDu-Cattaraugus-225Q

The Scrapyard 511 suffers from a rather short handle, which amusingly is also an issue with the Catt225Q :) Scrapyards and Swamp rats tend to be overly thick behind the edge, but I too like their designs. The Battle Rat would be great to own, or one could supplement with a similar Scrapyard 911.


It's interesting to think how the government contracted all these combat knives for general issue... now even when the gov't issues knives, most soldiers simply bring their own, not so?
 
By January of 1942 the Government took control of virtually all commodities and raw materials. They determined where it would go, for what purpose, and set the price. The American knife industry was first making their products for the military, second for the industries deemed vital to the War effort. You couldn't go to your local store and just buy a knife. There weren't any. There wasn't a coupon in your ration book for knives. If you needed one you had to plead your case to a Government official for them to determine if your need warranted getting permission from Uncle to buy one.
Basically the only other option was to find someone who was producing them from scrape material,which was pretty short, buying a used item from an individual who was willing to sell , or wait for the end of the War.
World War Two is said to have put 16 million American's in uniform, over 10% of the population. When you factor in that the standing military comprised less than 1 million before the War, it's not hard to see that there wasn't enough of anything on hand when we got into the War. In 1944 Government orders for pocket knives alone was over 3 million. The projected orders for 1945 was for over 4 million more. Weeks after the surrender of Japan all outstanding contracts for knives were cancelled. We still had enough stock on hand to get us thru the Korean War. New old stock Cattaraugus 225Q's from WW2 were still being issued to some sailors in the Navy as late as the 1960's as well as some other WW2 vintage knives. The Government did start writing new contracts for different kinds of knives by the 1950's.
I agree that the procurement system has moved more towards personal purchase items. There is less need to stockpile those larger quantities of material for the military today that averages around 1/2 of one percent of our present population.
 
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