I can hardly believe that another Memorial Day has come and gone. It was a quiet one here in western NY. The TV news reports are all about the rising number of "Mass Shootings" and the rise of white Supremacy. Very little remembrance really for the lives lost in wars. The last mass shooter was Hispanic but what the heck he was probably a white supremacist at heart. I pray for healing for the folks in Texas.

So now we are being assaulted (again) from all sides about gun control. It is a battle that never ends. That dud in the White House says they should ban all 9mm handguns. To them everything over a .22 short is a high-powered caliber. How many times do we have to fight the battle for freedom from oppression by our own government? They say you should not be able to buy a rifle until you are 21 years old. But you can be drafted when you are 18. The same old double standard that has been going on for decades. I remember coming back from Vietnam and not being able to buy a beer in a bar. When I went to Vietnam to kill commies I was 19 years old. I could drink all the beer I wanted over there. I carried a 1911 handgun and a full-auto capable M-16 and had an AK-47, over there. How many times have our wars been started by, or expanded by, men who were never in the military, men who never served, men who bought their way out or who used college exemptions that the rest of us deplorables could not afford. Don't talk to me about white privilege, I know all about it and I'm a good old white boy. They use race and political party, gender and social position to divide us, but they don't really care about any of us. Our current administration just delivered 80 billion dollars of high tech weaponry to our enemy including thousands of full auto firearms. No accountability for that?

It galls me to see people like that "Paying tribute" to our fallen heroes. Does anyone really believe they care? It's all a photo-op, it's all about "optics" and poll numbers for them. Hundreds of thousands of men fought and died for the very freedoms the draft-dodging, marijuana smoking politicians want to stripfrom us. It's all about the old dude in the WH whose IQ is lower than his poll numbers, who greets the returning dead from Afghanistan and can't stop checking his watch, it's past his nap time. They use our survivor guilt, our compassion to create an image of caring that they themselves cannot legitimately pull off. It's all about hypocrisy to the max. We who served remember those who fell. We who came home whole remember those brothers and sisters who came home in bags or with limbs missing, minds fogged with PTSD, or worse. It makes me cringe to see creepy joe placing the wreath where brave men lie. ​We, the often-forgotten, honor them. I was 19 in these photos. 

The loose hilt on the A&P dagger was driving me nuts. I also worried about the crack spreading. I decided to find or make a ferule for the pommel where it was clear one had been at one time. I tried all of my empty brass rifle cases but none of them were quite large enough. I dug through my garage full of junk and 40 years of collecting odds and ends. I was just about to give up when I found a bag of brass grommets used for tents and awnings. Sure enough, it was just the right inside diameter. Using a Dremel cut-off wheel I sliced off a piece the height I needed. I whipped up some epoxy and coated the inside of the tube and drove it on using a small tack hammer and piece of wooden doweling. It enhances the look of the hilt as well as strengthening it. Now when I pick it up the hilt does not want to spin around, which was extremely irritating, and it feels like a real fighting knife. I am sure the original ferule fell off when the hilt shrank. 

​Shrinkage is always a problem with wooden grips and depending on the type of wood and the climate it can be quite severe. Almost all of my Commando knives with wooden handles exhibit cracks near either, or both, ends. Today's knifemakers have the luxury of using stabilized woods, which help prevent, but does not always eliminate this problem. I have some very expensive fighting knives that have hilts made from Stabilized burl woods which have still suffered some shrinkage and resultant cracking. 

​The dagger illustrated here came from an unknown source. It has a blade about ¼ inch thick and 4.75 inches long. The nicely ground blade is quite sharp.  Clearly marked with A&P on the ricasso and on one branch of the aluminum guard. The initials stand for Alcock and Pierce, a sporting goods firm in Australia who made and/or sold edged weapons during WW-2. The hilt is some sort of wood, (Beech maybe?) not particularly attractive, but functional. The recess around the pommel leads me to believe that at one time it probably had a brass cap or ferrule of some sort. My first impression of the knife is how similar it is to a Shanghai dagger in size and shape.
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I’ll admit it is a bit of a stretch, but we do know that as Shanghai was invaded by the Japanese Army many of the residents escaped to Australia. This included the SMP (Shanghai Municipal Police) armoury craftsmen who continued to make example of the Yeaton style dagger in Australia. We also know that W.E. Fairbairn did business with A&P. It is just possible that he might have directed the workman in the SMP (who made the daggers) to the shops of A&P looking for work.  I carefully stoned out a burr caused by a nick in one side of the blade where it had collided with another blade at some time. Typical of wooden grips there is a shrinkage crack and also the handle is loose on the tang. It came with what appears to be its original sheath, in less than mint condition. The knife is large enough to make a good back up blade for emergency use, but in combat I would not want to depend on a blade this short as my primary killing weapon.