Viet Nam era ('64 - '75) Pilot Survivals

S

Sya Khang Khyn

Joined
Jan 9, 2007
Messages
2
Did Camillus ever make a pilot survival (the current Mod # 5733) in a bright metal (non-parkerized) finish?

Also, I have seen one with one face of the butt cap stamped "Camillus, N.Y." and "10-1975."

Was stamping the date on the butt cap a standartd pactice then or now?

Many thanks.

Daniel
 
Thanks Codger.
:thumbup:

The catalogue description says "highly polished" and it looks like bright metal in the picture.

I guess Camillus had high hopes for this thing, calling it the "Astronaut-Jet Space Knife."

I served at an Army field station in Thailand ('72 - '74) and there was an air base nearby. I don't remember the air crews carrying these.

In '77 - '78 I was in an Infantry brigade in Korea and all Air Force air crews I encountered had them. Army flight crews wore them also, but I am not sure if they were an Army issue item.

We were three "straight leg" Infantry battalions and many of the grunts had one of these strapped to their web gear. The first one I every handled belonged to an Infantryman.
 
As shown above in Codger's posting showing a Camillus catalog page, the model #1010 was the civilian version of the military Pilot Survival knife.
The dates were stamped on the butts of the 5" Pilot Survival knife beginning in 1967 and this practice continued until the 1980's. After Camillus lost the military contract to Ontario the date stamping was discontinued and the Camillus name was stamped on the blade. The most recent stamping is "CamilluS" (Note the large "C" and "S").

During the 1980's Camillus made a special run of Pilot Survival knives with the polished blade and a parkerized guard and butt. 3,000 knives were made for Paragon Sales/Westwind Productions that had the aircraft of Viet Nam etched on the blade. Camillus made the knives and then sent them to Adrian Harris (founder of Colonel Coon Knives) for etching and packaging.

Tom Williams
 
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