USMC KA-BAR Combat Knife
With all the twentieth-century innovations in small arms, grenades, rockets, and explosives, it’s relatively easy to overlook the value of more traditional weapons, such as the fighting knife. From the crude flint tools of antiquity, to today’s CBQ blades, warriors have drawn blood with knives since the dawn of battle. Knives also proved themselves valuable tools in a variety of capacities, from clearing brush to prying open containers and cutting tangled straps. Nowhere was this more evident than in the steamy jungles and on the bloody shores of the Southern Pacific during World War II.
The U.S. Marines have a long and storied affinity for combat knives. During the early nineteenth century, Lieutenant Presley Neville O’Bannon carried a naval dirk from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. Leathernecks made extensive use of trench knives during WWI, later pioneering a stiletto-style dagger at the outset of WWII.
Their greatest innovation, however, rested with Captain Clifford H. Shuey, who commissioned and procured the first Bowie-style “K-Bar” during the early 1940s. The new, 8-inch steel blade proved indispensable in untamed Pacific island hellholes, like Tarawa and Iwo Jima. The KA-BAR has remained part of the Marines’ standard inventory for over a century and continues to be issued to infantrymen even today.
The versatility and dependability of the blade have made it incredibly popular among civilian collectors, hunters, and enthusiasts. Camillus Cutlery Company and Union Cutlery Companies were two of the original manufacturers of the knife, with the former producing over one million of the weapons and the latter trademarking the title “KA-BAR.” Other manufacturers included the Robeson (ShurEdge) Cutlery Company and the PAL Cutlery Company, both of whom were contracted by the Government to produce KA-BARs during the Second World War. Regardless of their origin, countless numbers of KA-BARs proved indispensable to sailors and Marines over the course of the war.