My Story:
I'll start off with a brief story about a personal knife. I am no commando and I could never begin to emulate their ferocity, tenacity, or their combat skills. Despite that, back in 1968 I made a small excursion into a war zone. It was to a place called Danang, Vietnam. I could not afford an original F~S, nor even find one. I could not afford a Randall Model 2 either. I was 19 years old and broke. So I settled for the closest thing I could find. It was this small German Naval dagger purchased in a Georgia pawn shop. In size and format it is very close to a Fairbairn Sykes. Thankfully I never needed to use it but just having it gave me some reassurance, especially the night my M-16 jammed and would not function, as I hunkered down quietly in my pitch dark fighting hole to watch the advancing battle.

I also carried a Camillus Pilot's Survival Knife. That knife was more useful for daily tasks and eminently more rugged. Below is a 1968 photo of me sitting on my favorite bulldozer. The SeaBee emblem is visible on the fuel tank, which sits right behind my seat! That is a sweat band, not a bandage by the way. Note the cut off marine greens and T-shirt uniform.

Besides my knives I had my issue M-16, a Russian AK-47, a cut-down Winchester M-2 carbine, and a Remington Rand 1911 pistol. The carbine served as my firearm of choice when running dump trucks.

Dad's Knife:
Here’s a story about an F~S that did not go to war and an unlikely knife that did. My father was a career officer in the US Army and made three tours to Vietnam. He was often in the very thick of it including hand-to-hand combat. During one assault by the VC he used his M-16 rifle on full auto until it burned out, then he used it as a club until it broke and finally after night fell they got down to fighting H2H with a knife. 

I purchased the Fairbairn-Sykes shown below for dad after his retirement. It is a 1970s vintage knife made by Venture Knife company. It was the best example I could find at that time and it was about the equal of a William Rodgers or any other F~S coming out of England, (other than a Wilkinson). The blade is marked LRDG for Long Range Desert Group, ironic in that he had been deployed to the steamy jungles of Vietnam not an arid desert. But still it was a fighting knife.

Back in 1967 before he went to Vietnam he saw a Schrade “Sharp
Finger” hunting knife that I had and asked me if he could have that knife to take with him. Ever since I was a young child he would bring me a knife home from his summer training at Fort Drum, NY so it was my pleasure to give the Schrade to him. After he had been over in Vietnam for a while he wrote to me and asked if I could send him another one. Luckily I had received one as a bonus for subscribing to “Guns and Ammo” so I sent that one along too. In 1993 my father passed away and his new son (my Vietnamese stepbrother) kept most of his belongings.

Fast forward another 18 years to today. Tragically my stepbrother died very  unexpectedly and my Dad’s Vietnamese wife asked me if I would like to have the knife back that I had given dad. She returned the Venture F~S to me, still in its presentation box, unused. She also returned the Schrade G&A knife which showed considerable use. This “Sharp Finger” was one of the knives that Dad actually carried along with a Russell “Yukon Skinner” I also sent him on one of his tours. Dad had a strange preference in fighting knives but one thing I do know, he said “The only thing you ever need to know about knife fighting is to never get into one.”That’s good advice from a man who had been there and done it. Miss you dad. 

photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

Bent But Not Broken:
This P-2 Fairbairn Sykes has a story to tell but we will never know what it is. It was excavated on the beach at Dieppe some 30 years ago. The Dieppe Raid took place 19 August 1942. Over 3,000 of the 6,000 some Allied troops involved were either wounded, killed, or captured.

The blade is badly twisted, bent, and rust pitted but it is about 95 percent intact. The handle is also bent and some idiot tried to remove the top nut, grinding much of it away. Despite all of this abuse the knife is solid and fairly tight. I bought this proud knife from a dealer in England, deciding it deserved a good home.

The handle is stamped with the broad-arrow and the number four. The corrosive effects of being buried for 40+ years  on a beach are evident. Long tapered bevels on the blade where it enters through the guard are perhaps indicative of manufacture by J. Clarke & Sons, Sheffield, England.

One of a Kind: This knife was obvioulsy personalized by its
owner. The question is who owned it last a German or an Allied Trooper? The handle of the heavy bladed knife was replaced with a bakelite one from perhaps a kitchen knife. The pommel end has a Swastika cut deeply into it. We will never know the history behind this modification. The guard end of the handle also has a spacer of plexiglass. The guard is the original and the sheath is nearly standard F~S with the exception of a slight modification to the frog.  

OK no one is offering to send in stories for publication so I might as well claim some bragging rights for my "old man." Here is a list of some of his military awards.