"Fighting Knives" an eBay pet peeve

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Cattaraugus225

Joined
Aug 5, 2022
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To every blade seller on eBay, any knife that may have been of the period of WWII, is a "fighting knife." As a student of history, that really gripes my soul. If a WWII soldier had to result to fighting with a knife, that meant that his primary weapon had become useless or lost, his squad, company and battalion had failed in their mission and the poor trooper was probably about to earn the purple heart or the order of the white cross.

Anyone living in a tent, or in a sleeping bag or foxhole needed a knife. There were toenails to clip, tent pegs to make, cans to open, firewood to prepare, ropes to cut, and any one of a thousand mundane tasks that knives are invaluable to comfort and survival. Regardless of the hype, that is the jobs these knives excelled at. Now, I know, before the push-back starts, that you can find stories of Marines on some God-forsaken Pacific atoll, saving his life with his Ka-Bar, but that is the exception to the rule. Perhaps someone in a Marine Raider Battalion would depend on a knife to silence an unwary guard, but again, the exception, not the rule. A more honest description of the knives would be "fixed-blade camp knives," but that wouldn't sell to war gamers.

I am a big fan of the blades of WWII and I don't need to think that "this blade cut a Nazi throat" Ok, my rant is over, I just needed to get it off my chest.....;)
 

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eBay and gunbroker are slowly turning into Amazon. I feel like I can’t trust most seller’s description anymore, and sometimes not even their pictures. I used to work weekend side-hustles at Antique galleries and I saw eBay slowly kill off all the galleries. Years later, and I’m getting to the point now where I just don’t trust online sellers. I want to lay my hands on the physical item, whether it’s theater/trench knives or anything else. I realize this is a little unrelated but its sort of part of the same thing. They’re just shilling their stuff and using all the buzzwords that they think we want to hear.
 
It continues today...some makers have "fighters" that are general purpose knives with a cool name.

I like to think of fighting knives--as a modern style--having a double guard, a sharp top edge, at least 5" length and a substantial point. (See: Randall Model 1, Loveless Chute, WWI trench knives.) Of course I am ignoring kukris, karambits, bowies, plain old kitchen knives and others that have been used as "fighters."
 
My collection is focused on USN Deck knives. They are literally meant for working on a boat. Yet I see them listed as combat knives.

I’m glad my collection is complete, I just don’t see quality or the realistic prices anymore.
 
From what I have seen, these "tags" are attached to knives, some more than others, for search hits. People who want a "WWII fighting knife", not a "1943-era military knife", and telling them what they wanna hear usually does the trick. Some knives are labelled like this - "Fruit cutting defense bushcraft folding pocket knife".

But yeah, I get your gripe. From what I understand, a soldier these days would be better served if I threw him a Leatherman and a SAK, than an Espada XL.
Was going to say "happier" instead of better-served, but not all soldiers know what they need immediately, lots wanna go with a KA-BAR, etc, but I don't know, we all know a guy who loves a good bit of nonsense. I heard a soldier once got chewed out for wearing a zombie knife on his battle uniform or something like that.

My first love was the F-S pattern blade, and I still like some of W-E Fairbairn's techniques, he taught me about balance points, how to stand, various basic stuff, but I see how ridiculous the knife is now, and glad I did not bust more money on a "nicer" Pakistani Damascus version before I knew what Pakimascus was.

If I was out there... this is just total BS-ing as I am not anything close to a soldier.... If I was out there, I think I would bring the lightest serviceable Leatherman I could to have stored in a pack, a good SAK, probably with Alox (Sorry, my sweet white Finnish babies, you'll snap your sweet Cellidor) and, if weight was a real concern to me, a "light" multipurpose folder like the XL Voyager (7.5oz for 5.5in blade, Tri-Ad, meh, works for me) that would make me feel better if things went really south, or I was attacked in such a way I could not access a firearm, like on the ground with someone on my chest/rifle, struggling for my pistol. This is the main situation I hear about servicepeople (police, military, whatever) having to use their knife to fight.
 
Cattaraugus225 said:
To every blade seller on eBay, any knife that may have been of the period of WWII, is a "fighting knife." As a student of history, that really gripes my soul. If a WWII soldier had to result to fighting with a knife, that meant that his primary weapon had become useless or lost, his squad, company and battalion had failed in their mission and the poor trooper was probably about to earn the purple heart or the order of the white cross.

Anyone living in a tent, or in a sleeping bag or foxhole needed a knife. There were toenails to clip, tent pegs to make, cans to open, firewood to prepare, ropes to cut, and any one of a thousand mundane tasks that knives are invaluable to comfort and survival. Regardless of the hype, that is the jobs these knives excelled at. Now, I know, before the push-back starts, that you can find stories of Marines on some God-forsaken Pacific atoll, saving his life with his Ka-Bar, but that is the exception to the rule. Perhaps someone in a Marine Raider Battalion would depend on a knife to silence an unwary guard, but again, the exception, not the rule. A more honest description of the knives would be "fixed-blade camp knives," but that wouldn't sell to war gamers.

I am a big fan of the blades of WWII and I don't need to think that "this blade cut a Nazi throat" Ok, my rant is over, I just needed to get it off my chest.....;)
Click to expand...
Do you feel better now?
 
Hashishiin said:
From what I have seen, these "tags" are attached to knives, some more than others, for search hits. People who want a "WWII fighting knife", not a "1943-era military knife", and telling them what they wanna hear usually does the trick. Some knives are labelled like this - "Fruit cutting defense bushcraft folding pocket knife".

But yeah, I get your gripe. From what I understand, a soldier these days would be better served if I threw him a Leatherman and a SAK, than an Espada XL.
Was going to say "happier" instead of better-served, but not all soldiers know what they need immediately, lots wanna go with a KA-BAR, etc, but I don't know, we all know a guy who loves a good bit of nonsense. I heard a soldier once got chewed out for wearing a zombie knife on his battle uniform or something like that.

My first love was the F-S pattern blade, and I still like some of W-E Fairbairn's techniques, he taught me about balance points, how to stand, various basic stuff, but I see how ridiculous the knife is now, and glad I did not bust more money on a "nicer" Pakistani Damascus version before I knew what Pakimascus was.

If I was out there... this is just total BS-ing as I am not anything close to a soldier.... If I was out there, I think I would bring the lightest serviceable Leatherman I could to have stored in a pack, a good SAK, probably with Alox (Sorry, my sweet white Finnish babies, you'll snap your sweet Cellidor) and, if weight was a real concern to me, a "light" multipurpose folder like the XL Voyager (7.5oz for 5.5in blade, Tri-Ad, meh, works for me) that would make me feel better if things went really south, or I was attacked in such a way I could not access a firearm, like on the ground with someone on my chest/rifle, struggling for my pistol. This is the main situation I hear about servicepeople (police, military, whatever) having to use their knife to fight.
Click to expand...
One of the kind of humorous anecdotes that I have read, and I can't recall which book, the author was discussing new troops arriving in France shortly after D-day, would come in loaded down with everything that they thought that they might ever need in the coming battles. He claimed that that lasted until about ten miles into the first forced march and then the roadside would be littered with knives, books, cooking gear, canteens, gas masks etc. The experienced soldiers shed everything that they could get by with shedding, keeping the important stuff; helmet, entrenching tool, weapons and ammo.
 
Cattaraugus225 said:
One of the kind of humorous anecdotes that I have read, and I can't recall which book, the author was discussing new troops arriving in France shortly after D-day, would come in loaded down with everything that they thought that they might ever need in the coming battles. He claimed that that lasted until about ten miles into the first forced march and then the roadside would be littered with knives, books, cooking gear, canteens, gas masks etc. The experienced soldiers shed everything that they could get by with shedding, keeping the important stuff; helmet, entrenching tool, weapons and ammo.
Click to expand...
Ha! Yeah, this is exactly the kind of thing I mean. I don't think teen soldiers are the best practitioners of minimalism until something like a march like that...
See, now if they just packed their Douk-Douk Le Giant... 😂
 
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