- Joined
- Jul 31, 2002
- Messages
- 2,954
I've been thinking about this lately because of one of my customers. He's a collector of everything fancy, rare, and/or high quality, and his latest passion is "theater knives". (knives made by servicemen in the Pacific theater during WWII)
He has brought me about 10 of these knives to have some minor repairs done. (only correcting what previous owners screwed up. grinder marks on the edge, etc.) We have spoken at length about them, and it seems I have discounted the role that knives played as weapons during our great wars. Did you know there was actually a shortage of knives for soldiers in WWII? Someone out west actually ran a campaign called "Donate a knife, save a life." or something like that. They recieved thousands of sturdy knives for servicemen in a short time. They didn't even need sheaths, as the government contracted to have generic scabbards made for those without. He told me something that his father (who was a survivor of heavy combat in WWII) had passed on to him. To paraphrase, he said "There are times when you're laying in your little foxhole or a bomb crater, and someone [an enemy] jumps in with you. There's no time or even room to get your rifle around to shoot the guy. (I guess he's talking about those big 14 pound Garands) No one really had sidearms, you know, 'cept the officers, but you could get your knife out pretty quick and just stab the guy." That's one of those things I never really thought about. I guess I should have, since that's exactly what happened to the main character in the historic novel "All Quiet on the Western Front". (written by a WWI veteran)
This collector also said "I got one big knife at home...you should see it... with two notches filed into the guard. You can tell they're origional, and someone put them there on purpose. Not decoration or anything. We'll never know... but it really make you wonder, ya know?" Most of these knives are somewhat crude by our standards, but as he said, "any one of 'em would be worth every penny you got if you really needed it..."
you can figure out the rest of that statement.
He has brought me about 10 of these knives to have some minor repairs done. (only correcting what previous owners screwed up. grinder marks on the edge, etc.) We have spoken at length about them, and it seems I have discounted the role that knives played as weapons during our great wars. Did you know there was actually a shortage of knives for soldiers in WWII? Someone out west actually ran a campaign called "Donate a knife, save a life." or something like that. They recieved thousands of sturdy knives for servicemen in a short time. They didn't even need sheaths, as the government contracted to have generic scabbards made for those without. He told me something that his father (who was a survivor of heavy combat in WWII) had passed on to him. To paraphrase, he said "There are times when you're laying in your little foxhole or a bomb crater, and someone [an enemy] jumps in with you. There's no time or even room to get your rifle around to shoot the guy. (I guess he's talking about those big 14 pound Garands) No one really had sidearms, you know, 'cept the officers, but you could get your knife out pretty quick and just stab the guy." That's one of those things I never really thought about. I guess I should have, since that's exactly what happened to the main character in the historic novel "All Quiet on the Western Front". (written by a WWI veteran)
This collector also said "I got one big knife at home...you should see it... with two notches filed into the guard. You can tell they're origional, and someone put them there on purpose. Not decoration or anything. We'll never know... but it really make you wonder, ya know?" Most of these knives are somewhat crude by our standards, but as he said, "any one of 'em would be worth every penny you got if you really needed it..."
you can figure out the rest of that statement.