Hunting Origins

From what I’ve read, bayonets (knives or spikes mounted to firearms) were first developed as a backup for hunting in the 1600s, the age of slow-to-recharge and unreliable ignition muzzle-loaders.

If a hunter wounded a wolf, panther, or wild boar, for example, and the animal charged him before the hunter could reload, a long pokey edged weapon mounted to the front of the firearm could possibly keep the hunter alive and in business.

The original bayonets were mounted by stuffing their narrow hilts (handles) IN to the muzzle of the firearm. Theoretically, this could be done a lot faster than ramming another charge all the way down the barrel, followed by a round ball, and then putting more powder in the pan. If the animal closed too quickly, the bayonet could be used in-hand, like a sword or knife, but if on the musket the hunter had a little more reach to stay clear of claws, tusks, horns, and fangs.

 

Pole Arms & Fear of the Cold Steel

During the middle ages and the renaissance, foot soldiers used a lot of pole arms: spears, pikes, and halberds (like a spear with a hook or axe on it).

A farmer might’ve been too poor to afford a horse or armor, but he found that the pruning hook he used on his lordship’s apple trees was also a useful tool for unhorsing an enemy knight. The halberd and the pike became effective means of evening the odds against cavalry.

When muskets began to dominate the battlefield, the long bayonet was a way to convert a slow-loading, but also long, muzzle-loader into a field expedient pike, and for mostly the same anti-equestrian reasons as the original pole arms.

Troops often stood stoically against (or even marched into) volley after volley of round musket (and later, badminton shaped Minnie) balls. The sound of gunfire–even black powder gunfire–is terrifying, but the projectiles usually could not be seen in flight, even when their effects were blatantly evident.

Almost nobody, though, stood up to a bayonet charge.

I believe our inherent fear of edged weapons comes from the fact that claws and fangs were viable threats when our DNA was being patterned. Unlike, say, instinctive fear of snakes, gunfire has not been around long enough to be part of our genetic memory.

 

Demoralizing Effects of Bayonets

General George Patton spoke of the psychological effect of glittering steel coming to explore your guts. More than most, Patton understood what Napoleon was talking about when he said that moral (mental) factors are far more important than actual physical conditions in combat.

• “It’s the cold glitter of the attacker’s eye, not the point of the questing bayonet, that breaks the line.
• It’s the fierce determination of the driver to close with the enemy, not the mechanical perfection of [the] tank, that conquers the trench.
• It’s the cataclysmic ecstasy of conflict in the flier, not the perfection of his machine gun, that drops the enemy in flaming ruin.
• Yet, volumes are devoted to armaments; and only pages to inspiration.

It lurks invisible in that vitalizing spark, intangible, yet as evident as the lightning–The Warrior Soul. The fixed determination to acquire The Warrior Soul, and having acquired it to either conquer, or perish with honor, is the Secret Of Victory.”

–George S. Patton, Jr, 1926

Patton’s words above were quoted by Charles M. Province in Patton’s One-Minute Messages, a book I read to my kids at bedtime.

 

Bayonets in the American Civil War

In his handout for our Thunder Ranch Old Rifle class, Clint Smith noted that even in the American Civil War, when rifle reloading was a time consuming challenge, only 1% of the KIAs were killed by bayonets. The following elaboration is from page 29 of Jack Coggins’ Arms and Equipment of the Civil War:

“The bristling points and the glitter of the bayonets were fearful to look upon as they were leveled in front of a charging line, but they were rarely reddened with blood.”

–Confederate General John Gordon

” . . . Corporal Selby killed a rebel with a bayonet there, which is a remarkable thing in battle and was spoken of in the official report.”

–Oscar Jackson, in his Colonel’s Diary

Only 6 out of 7302 wounded during Grant’s Wilderness campaign were listed as having been injured with a bayonet or sword. Be wary, however, of survivorship bias when analyzing such statistics.

But lethality is only one measure of a weapons system’s effectiveness. With a psychological weapon like the bayonet, it may not even be the most important criterion.

 

Milliken’s Bend

There were some–excuse the expression–pointed exceptions to the novelty of bayonet use during the Civil War. For example, there was a minor fracas at a place called Milliken’s Bend on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi. It was only small in relative terms; each side “only” had about 1500 men, far bigger than a rumble between rival gangs. Compared to the attack on the nearby Arkansas Post, where a garrison of 5,000 Confederate defenders was overwhelmed by 30,000 Federal troops, backed by a flotilla of Union gunboats, Milliken’s Bend would seem almost a skirmish, regardless of how big and important it must have seemed to every single participant who was there when it was happening. And compared to the siege of nearby Vicksburg, the fight over the minor Union Supply Depot at Milliken’s Bend, when most of the supplies had already been moved, might seem strategically unimportant.

Ironically, the much larger siege of Vicksburg, which would ultimately be the final nail in the coffin of the Confederacy of the West and would propel Ulysses S. Grant not only to command of the Union Army but to the Oval Office, was the reason the Milliken’s Bend battle happened at all. Texas troops were trying to raid supplies and to cut at least part of the noose that was tightening around Vicksburg, the largest remaining Southern port.

Milliken’s Bend was so unimportant to the Union Army when the Texans attacked on 07 June 1863, it was mostly manned by third string benchwarmers: recently liberated former slaves. They were issued older weapons and had not even had much time to train with them. Their inaccurate fire and inefficient reloading failed to stop the Rebels from reaching their first line of defense, a breastwork on top of a levee.

But then . . .

“The African regiments being inexperienced in the use of arms, some of them having been drilled but a few days, and the guns being very inferior, the enemy succeeded in getting upon our works . . . Here ensued a most terrible hand to hand conflict of several minutes duration, our men using the bayonet freely, and clubbing their guns with fierce obstinacy.”

–US Brigadier General Elias Dennis

Even the Confederate Commander, Brigadier General Henry McCulloch, concurred with Gen Dennis’ assessment, saying the Black men fought with “considerable obstinacy.” The ferocity with which the previously untested Black soldiers fought surprised Whites on both sides, including the Federal 23rd Iowa Infantry, veteran soldiers who fought alongside them.

The Blacks at Milliken’s Bend had several cogent reasons to fight hard.

• For one, they had limited terrain for withdrawal. Their backs were to the Mississippi River. I am a fairly confident swimmer, but I wouldn’t want to try it, especially with enemies on the bank shooting at me. That stream is a mile or more across.
• As former slaves, only recently liberated, they had no reason to love men who had rebelled to preserve the institution of slavery.
• The Confederates had a policy of returning captured slaves to their former masters. Slave owners in Louisiana, as a general rule, were known to be the most egregious when it came to mistreatment of their human chattel. That’s where the term “Sold down the river” comes from.
• The Rebels also had a policy of killing any slaves found committing “insurrection” by bearing arms against their (former) masters. White Northern officers who incited Blacks to insurrection, by arming and leading them in battle, were also subject to execution.

For these, plus at least 1500 individual reasons, the defenders of the Union Depot at Milliken’s Bend fought at close quarters with bayonets and buttstocks like banshees. The 11th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent), in particular, gave up hardly any ground, even when the other Union troops, Black and White, were being pushed back to the second levee.

The carnage of the close range, fixed bayonets fight was extreme, even by Civil War standards. The Union suffered 492 losses (1/3 of their troops) at Milliken’s Bend:

• 119 Killed in Action
• 241 Wounded in Action
• 132 Missing in Action. At least some of the MIAs, Blacks and their White officers, were later learned to have been executed after capture.

The vast majority (427) of the Union casualties were of African descent.

The Rebels lost 185, but the disparity in casualties tells only part of the story.

I once lost a boxing match to a Golden Gloves champ. It was an epic beating, but he won by decision, not KO. It was so bad that in the third round the ref took me aside. “You sure you want to go on with this?” he asked. I asked only where the enemy could be found, since both of my eyes were nearly swollen shut. I wound up on a soft diet for a couple of weeks.

That Golden Gloves guy ran into me later and said he greatly admired the way I hung in there, even though I was taking a savage thumping.

Likewise, Southerners grew to respect the courage under fire and the savagery in hand to hand bayonet combat of Black troops. More importantly, their performance at Milliken’s Bend so impressed White Northerners than many dropped their objections to Colored troops, which led the way to greater Black recruitment by the Union Army.

Regardless of how many were stuck with bayonets at Milliken’s Bend, the way those former slaves wielded them changed the course, if not the outcome, of the war.

 

Little Round Top

It’s possible that a single bayonet charge altered the course of the American Civil War.

During the pivotal battle at Gettysburg, the “high water mark of the Confederacy,” if the Rebels had taken Little Round Top, they might have been able to flank and therefore “roll up” the entire Union line. Col. Chamberlain, in command on Little Round Top, understood its importance and determined to defend it at all costs. When the 20th Maine troops ran low on ammo, they charged down the hill with bayonets, routing most of the Rebel forces, and ensuring the Union’s victory. How many Rebels they actually stuck with bayonets is not nearly as relevant as that bayonet charge’s effect on the outcome of the battle, and hence, on the tide of the war.

Effectiveness = results, not kills

The Britts were disappointed with the number of Argentine aircraft they were able to down with their complicated and expensive surface to air missiles in the Falklands. However, the presence of their SAM threat forced the Argie pilots to operate at insanely low altitude. Consequently, many of the Argentine bomb fuses did not have time to arm before hitting their targets. The SAMs-launched-to-aircraft-killed ratio doesn’t tell the whole story of their effect on the outcome.

Most of the time, when the bayonets came on, the other side tended to bug out.

 

World War II: The Pacific

One notable exception to the “nobody stands against cold steel” rule is when the defenders have no place to go. In the Pacific (especially in the earlier years of WWII), the Japanese “Banzai!” charges were legendary, but failed to accomplish their goal of retaking the beachhead. The Marines stood their ground against the Japanese bayonets for two reasons:

1. First, because they were Marines.
2. Second, unless you could swim all the way back to Hawaii in your gear, or at least back to where Jeff Cooper and his boys were on their ships sending naval artillery over your head, retreat from the beach was not much of an option. Some soldiers of the overrun 105th Infantry regiment actually did swim from Saipan to offshore destroyers on 07 Jul 1944 (see below).

The so-called “Banzai charge” (Americans called it that after hearing the Japanese battle cry “Tennōheika Banzai!“) was an official part of Japanese military doctrine, but it had been more effective in the 1930s against Chinese troops with their bolt action rifles, than it was in the 1940s against the more rapid fire American BARs, M2s, .30 MGs, Thompsons, Garands, and M1 carbines.

The last major bayonet charge, Clint Smith noted, was on Saipan on 07 Jul 1944. It was a Hail Mary, all-hands-on-deck move. Several thousand Japanese, almost every single member of the surviving Japanese garrison, including walking wounded and even civilians–some armed with little more than sharpened sticks–charged the US troops in the wee hours of the morning. Hundreds of Marines and US Army soldiers were killed, and some American units were overrun, but virtually the entire Japanese force was wiped out. Most of the remaining Japanese on Saipan killed themselves by jumping off cliffs, rather than surrendering–despite impassioned pleas broadcast by loudspeakers, in Japanese, that they would not be harmed.

The 4th Marine Division and the Army’s 27th Infantry Division bore the brunt of that massive bayonet assault. Google Private Thomas Baker, Capt Benjamin Salomon, and Lt Col William O’Brien to learn more about what it was like on the receiving end.

A handful of Japanese soldiers, including Capt Sakae Oba, who had lead from the front with a sword during the massive Banzai attack, escaped and evaded into Saipan’s interior, where he continued a guerrilla harassment campaign until months after the war ended.

 

Korea

On 07 Feb 1951, then-Captain Lewis J. Millett, who’d received a battlefield commission in WWII, saw that one of his platoons was pinned down by intense enemy fire from atop Hill 180 (now on Osan Air Base, South Korea).

To save them, Millett led two other platoons on a bayonet charge and took the hill, killing 50 Chinese (40% of them by bayonet). Millett was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Col Millett, who died on 14 Nov 2009, also served with the Rangers / Special Forces in Vietnam. His colorful exploits fall into the realm of “you can’t make this stuff up,” and are too numerous to list here.

 

Vietnam

Hand-to-hand combat, with knives, bayonets, entrenching tools, and even 5-gallon gas cans, was not entirely uncommon in Vietnam.

When US forces were on the offensive, the Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), collectively called “Charlie” (from the phonetic for VC, Victor Charlie) preferred to break contact, as any good guerrilla should in the face of an enemy with superior fighting strength.

“But on those rare occasions when we could pin them to a fight,” Army Special Forces SFC Gogurt told me in 1983, “they knew we had the artillery and the airpower, so they got real close, so we couldn’t use it on them.”

“That wan’t any fun at all,” he added.

When Charlie was on the offensive, it usually started with stealth. They used sappers to breach the defenses and infiltrate our outposts and fortified hamlets, most often at night.

The brand-new M-16 rifle had many reliability issues–due to changes in gunpowder, it’s direct gas impingement system, underpowered extractor springs, and the fact that Colt marketed it to the government as never needing cleaning, so the originals were sent out into the muddy jungles, river deltas, rice paddies, rubber plantations, and dusty highlands without complete cleaning kits (Clint Smith said all he got was a rod for the bore), or even maintenance instructions.

Disastrous under-maintenance led to harmful-over maintenance during the early ‘Nam era, as constant detailed disassembly of the lower receiver, pushing the steel pins in and out of the aluminum frame, enlarged the pin holes. Trigger and auto sear pins would suddenly fall out during fire fights (refer to Edward C. Ezell’s Great Rifle Controversy for more about the M16’s growing pains).

If the enemy is 50 meters away and your rifle quits, that’s bad enough. If he’s in the same hole with you when that happens, it’s worse. Here’s one example.

On 21 Jan 1968, Sgt Mykle E Stahl was running a mortar section on Hill 861, an outpost protecting Khe Sanh. The Gunny was dead, the First Sergeant was dying, and the Company Commander was too wounded to continue leading the Marines on the hill. The burden of command fell to 1Lt Jerry N Saulsbury, who despite his lack of infantry experience (he’d washed out of pilot training), rose to the occasion and acquitted himself well.

ALL Marines are riflemen first, and whatever their specialty is second.

Fortunately for the remaining Marines on Hill 861, Saulsbury had men like Stahl working for him.

Stahl, a Texan from Abilene, was already wounded by shrapnel when he saw that the leading trenches of their outpost were being overrun. Too close for his mortars to help, he moved forward and leapt into those trenches to rescue the wounded Marines there, facing off against 3 NVAs. One of the NVAs wounded Stahl (again) with a bayonet. Stahl’s M16 jammed, but he managed to kill 2 of the Charlies. Another Marine killed the third NVA.

Stahl “traded up” to an AK dropped by the NVAs and cleared the rest of the trench, killing 3 more NVAs, capturing 3 others, and re-taking a bunker. Despite being wounded a third time, Stahl then manned a .50 cal until the attack was repulsed.

As the mechanical reliability of the M16 (and then M16A1) was improved in fits and starts, the Army printed DA Pamphlet 750-30, a comic book designed to educate the GIs about how to get and keep their “Mattel Toy” up and running.

It was blatantly sexist and moderately racist (note the buck-toothed Charlie advising the Imperialist Yankee to check his ammo), but it was also humorous, informative, and caught the attention of the mostly adolescent GIs. The only mention of bayonets in DA Pam 750-30 was advice to use your M7 bayonet to cut .30 cal patches in quarters, if you couldn’t get any 5.56mm patches to swab your bore. 

 

Falklands / Malvinas

According to Max Hastings & Simon Jenkins (The Battle for the Falklands, pp. 302 – 05), as the Scots Guards began their final assault on Mt Tumbledown, the Argentine 5th Marine Infantry Battalion met them with machine gun fire and snipers with night vision scopes. Major John Kiszeley determined to break the deadlock with a bayonet charge.

“Are you with me, 15 Platoon?” he yelled. The troops responded with a resounding . . .

Silence.

He repeated the question, even louder. One soldier replied “Aye.”

Another said, “Aye, sir, I’m f___ing with you as well.”

Turned out, the only thing scarier than facing cold steel is to BE the ones doing the bayonet charge.

They took the summit, but at great cost to both sides. Kiszeley shot two Argentine soldiers and killed another with his bayonet.

According to Hastings & Jenkins (p. 299), and also Anthony H. Cordesman & Abraham R. Wagner (The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. III: The [Soviet -] Afghan and Falklands Conflicts, p. 285), Argentine soldiers also fell to bayonets on Mt. Longdon. See Appendix I for a controversy about bayonets on Mt. Tumbledown.

 

Iraq

On 14 May 2004, an unarmored convoy of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders was ambushed by Shia insurgents not far from Basra in southern Iraq. It was a combined IED, mortar, rocket, machine gun and other small arms attack. Two of the British vehicles were disabled in the KZ (kill zone, or the X) of the ambush.

Soldiers of the Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment (PWRR) rushed to their aid–and rolled into a classic, L-shaped ambush themselves.

The first Mahdi Army trenches were about 200 meters away.

Sgt David Falconer ordered the following men to fix bayonets and follow him:

• Sgt Chris Broome
• Private John-Claude Fowler
• Private Anthony Rushworth
• Private Matthew Tatawaqa
• Lance Corporal Brian Wood

They advanced in staggered rushes, straddling first one trench, then another, killing about 28 of the insurgents in fighting that became hand-to-hand. Three of the UK soldiers were wounded, but the other insurgents fled or held up in a bunker (till it was destroyed by a responding British tank).

 

Afghanistan

Corporal Sean Jones of 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment, was on patrol in Helmand Province when his unit was ambushed by Taliban. They made it to a water-filled ditch, but were pinned down from three directions, surrounded by open terrain. It was just a matter of time before they were going to be wiped out, one by one.

Jones ordered three men with him to fix bayonets, and ordered two others to lay down covering fire, before sprinting over 80 meters of open ground.

I never did a bayonet charge, but once, near San Benito, Texas, I ran about 70 meters towards a shooter with an AR-15 who was gunning down my fellow cops, on a road that bullets had just bounced off of. Time did not seem to slow down, and I experienced zero auditory exclusion. In fact, the rifle (and returning pistol) fire was painfully loud. I did, however, experience spatial distortion: it seemed like my destination was a thousand meters away. It wasn’t till I went back later that I realized how short the distance really was.

It was over 10 meters farther, with easily three times the incoming fire, and it must’ve seemed like a hundred more, for Cpl Jones and the other men of 1 PWRR. Yet their gallant rush was so unexpected, it took the Taliban entirely by surprise. The Tallies bugged out. Jones was later awarded the Military Cross for his actions.

 

US Bayonet Evolution Since 1900

In World War One, bayonets were long–practically short swords.

Bayonet collectors refer to those older, longer bayonets as “sword bayonets,” and newer, shorter bayonets as “knife bayonets” or “bayonet knives.”

The M1905 bayonet for the US M1903 Springfield rifle had a 16 inch blade, with a wide, square fuller. It was made from 1906 to 1922.

Despite the millions of bayonet toting infantrymen who were mown down between the trenches by machine guns and artillery during World War One, the bayonet remained an important part of US military doctrine between the world wars. So much so, that the business end of the M1 Garand, including the width of the barrel, and both the vertical and longitudinal distance to the bayonet lug, were designed specifically to accept the Army’s existing stockpile of M1905 bayonets.

Production of the M1905 resumed again in the months after Pearl Harbor. Collectors sometimes call those “M1942s,” although the US military still called them M1905s.  

When US troops invaded (Vichy French) North Africa, some had M1903 bolt action rifles and some had the newer M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle. On 10 Nov 1942, soldiers of the 9th US Infantry stormed the Sebou River kasbah with M1905 bayonets affixed to the rifles, regardless of which rifle was in their hands (Martin K. A. Morgan, “Guns of Operation Torch,” American Rifleman, Nov 2022, pp. 51-52).

The bayonet designed for the M1903 Springfield remained front-line equipment, even after the M1903 rifle it had been designed for was rendered obsolete.

In World War Two, soldiers were sometimes fortunate enough to ride to battle in something other than LPCs (leather personnel carriers). Many of the existing M1905 blades were hacked down to 10 inches by armories to make them more convenient to hang off the belt in and around a truck, a half-track, a C-47, or a glider. The 10 inch bladed version of the M1905, whether cut down from an original or made with a 10 inch blade (starting in 1943), was designated the M1 bayonet (not to be confused with the M1 Garand, the M1 carbine, or the later M1 Abrams main battle tank).

The tips of the cut-down M1905s came in different shapes, as different armories found various creative solutions to deal with the original M1905s long fuller, which exceeded the length of the shorter M1 blade.

M1 bayonets made during World War Two had narrower, rounder fullers, as well as plastic grip panels (the original M1905 grips were wood).

I obtained the following 8×10″ photograph so long ago, I’ve forgotten which museum or library I got it from. It shows US Army soldiers of the 37th Infantry Division on Bougainville in the Pacific in 1944 (probably in April). Clearly the longer (16″ bladed) M1905 bayonets were still carried by some soldiers, even late in the war.

The nature of the Pacific war was such that US GIs might “own” huge swaths of an island for weeks, but still be suddenly surprised at close range when a starving Japanese soldier suddenly jumped out of a spider hole wanting nothing more out of this life than to stick an allied soldier with the bayonet on his own Arisaka before he was cut down. That might explain why these soldiers (including some off to the right in the original version of this photo) are moving around with cumbersome but fixed bayonets.

So common was sudden close contact in the Pacific that Chesty Puller, when he saw a flamethrower prototype, famously asked where one was supposed to affix the bayonet to it.

 

The M3’s influence on subsequent US bayonet design

Most US bayonets during the half century in and after WWII had blades modeled after the M3 fighting knife’s. There were very specific reasons for the shape of the M3 blade, as well as for the reason it was copied on the bayonets that superseded it. Mainly, it was logistics.

One military truism I’ve learned along the way is that

Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics.

There’s no doubt that logistics are the main thing that wins wars, and logistics had a great deal to do with the size of the M3 blade. In 1942, when all materiel was in short supply, the powers that be chose a blade for the next military fighting knife 6.7 inches long, and less than an inch wide. This was to conserve precious steel.

A fighting knife (as opposed to a bayonet) was not intended to convert a rifle into a spear, so length was not hugely important. Rather, it was to gut an enemy who jumped into your foxhole (or after you jumped into his foxhole). In those tight confines, a longer blade might be less usable. It was a poker, meant to be used in short, underhand (low line) thrusts, similar in principle to the Roman gladius hispanensis or the Zulu iklwa.

The length and width compared favorably with the Fairbairn – Sykes commando dagger, the gold standard of Allied fighting knives at the time. The rapier-like, double edged blade of the Fairbairn might slip into a Nazi sentry’s trachea easier, as the blunter M3’s false (top) edge only extended about a third of the way back from the point. This gave the M3 a thicker spine for 2/3 of the blade’s length, which made it sturdier for its most common tasks: busting packing bands off of ammo crates and punching into C-ration cans when one couldn’t find his P38 can opener.

While it was sturdy enough to cut twigs for camouflage (again, not requiring a long or wide blade), the M3 was never intended as a hacker or slasher. To chop a trail through a Pacific jungle, the Army issued a folding machete.

As with the conversion from the 16″ bladed M1905 to the 10″ M1 bayonet, the 6.7″ bladed M3 bayonet was more convenient in and around conveyances. British commando “Mad Jack” Churchill hight have sported a full sized Scottish claymore sword while storming the Italian village of Pigoletti (it had great intimidation factor when capturing or interrogating sentries), but after the cavalry horses had been put out to pasture, even the officers of WWII found longer blades inconvenient.

One unique and under-appreciated feature of the M3’s guard was that it was tilted forward for thumb bracing while using a “saber” grip. Placing one’s thumb against it provided additional lateral force downward toward the blade, which was helpful as the narrow straight blade was not the best at cutting. It may or may not have been useful when thrusting, which was the M3 fighting knife’s strong suit (see Dawson GP 4 in Appendix II below). 

The saber grip is preferred in some fighting styles. Many, perhaps most, prefer an ice-pick grip, but even among styles with the blade on the thumb side of the hand, a prison shank or hammer grip is often preferred. One drawback of the saber grip is that it leaves an open door–the gap between the fingertips and the thumb–for the knife to be pried out of the hand, either on purpose by an enemy, or simply during vigorous use.

M6 leather sheaths made for M3 fighting knives did not hold up well in the South Pacific’s steamy jungles. Beckwith Manufacturing figured out a way to impregnate cotton cloth (ducking) with plastic, and made the M8 sheath from that material, called Tenite.

The M8 sheath fit the M3 fighting knife; the “ears” or “wings” on the mouth of the M8 sheath angled down to accommodate the forward angled thumb bracing on the M3, regardless of which direction the blade faced when it was inserted.

The downward angled ears remained standard on the M8 (and later the M8A1) sheaths made through the Viet Nam era, and beyond. The M8A1 sheath I was issued when I deployed to Op Desert Shield in 1990 had downward angled ears, just in case anybody had an old M3 to thrust into it. This logistical bonus is called “cross compatibility with other existing systems.”

For more information, do an internet search for Ryan Roth’s The US M8 / M8A1 Scabbard.

The M8 was eventually superseded by the M10 Bayonet-knife Scabbard. My Tech Manual for the M6, M7, and M9 bayonets (TM 9-1005-237-23&P), dated 1993, lists the M10 scabbard but not the M8A1.

 

M4 Bayonet (NOT the bayonet for the M4 carbine)

The M3 was only made from 1943 to 1944. After that it was replaced with the M4 bayonet, although M3s and their variants saw service in subsequent wars.

The M4 was the same knife, same blade, that fit into the same M8 scabbard, except that the guard and pommel were modified for mounting it to an M1 carbine. An M4 could be used as a fighting knife, but an M3 could not be used as a bayonet, so they decided to standardize. Again, logistics win wars, so armies strive for cross-compatibility of gear whenever possible.

The blades on the next 4 US bayonets were virtually identical in shape, length, and width to the M3’s (and each other’s), so they would fit into our existing stockpile of M8 (and later M8A1) sheaths. The only difference was in the grips and requisite mounting hardware:

• M4 bayonet (for the M1 carbine)
• M5 / M5A1 bayonets (post Korean War era Garand)
• M6 bayonet (for the M14)
• M7 bayonet (for the M16) 

 

M5A1 Bayonet

The M1905 and M1 bayonets for the M1 Garand had a tiny button that needed to be depressed in order to release it from the sheath or from the rifle.

At the Frozen Chosin and elsewhere in Korea, the soldiers and Marines often wore thick gloves or mittens, and had difficulty with that tiny button.

The M5 Garand bayonet was adopted in 1953. It had a much larger button or tab just aft of the guard. It also mounted to the rifle with a nub on the guard instead of a larger, more cumbersome muzzle ring (see below). The Korean War ended with a ceasefire (and an uneasy peace to this day) in the summer of ’53, so the M5 may never have seen active service in the Korean war, but the M5 (and it’s slightly modified upgrade, the M5A1) remained the standard issue Garand bayonets for as long as the US issued the M1 Garand to its own troops or its allies.

Despite already being longer than the release button of the M1905 / M1 bayonets, the release catch lever was redesigned again in the M5A1, to make it even easier to use while wearing gloves.

To learn more, refer to M1 Garand Bayonets by Mike Popernack.

I can honestly say that my first issued rifle was an M1 Garand, as a “Doolie” cadet at the Air Force Academy, in 1981. One right of passage in “Beast” (BCT, Basic Cadet Training) was the Bayonet Assault Course.

Even Army infantry troops are very, VERY rarely expected to use bayonets in combat. The Air Force had some ground pounding units, like the Security Police (now Security Forces), which are essentially light infantry. Apart from Air Force SF, combat controllers (battlefield air traffic controllers), FACs (forward air controllers, like forward artillery observers for airstrikes), PJs (pararescue jumpers), and BALOs (battalion air liaison officers), the vast majority of Airdales have zero chance of using a bayonet in combat. A pilot isn’t going to use a knife, even off a rifle, unless his parachute is hung up in a tree, or she needs to cut her way out of some aluminum aircraft wreckage. In the 1980s, most of us cadets at the USAF Academy were expected to go to pilot training upon graduation.

Why then, teach us Zoomies to stab tires or stuffed dummies with a bayonet?

The purpose of the Bayonet Assault Course had ZERO to do with slicing, dicing, or making people into Julienne fries. It had everything to do with inculcating an ethos, trying to create what Patton called “The Warrior Soul” above.

Something approaching the will to combat that made Louis Sebille, fighting desperately to save our outnumbered, outgunned troops inside South Korea’s shrinking Pusan Perimeter, bank his aircraft back around after getting hit attacking a target.

He told his wingmen, “I’ll never make it back. I’m going to get that bastard.” Sebille kamikazed his Mustang directly onto an enemy position, hammering them with .50 cal all the way in.

A picture of Maj Sebille, along with a summary of his sacrifice, hung in Arnold Hall at the Air Force Academy. His eyes stared at you with that direct gaze, as if to say “This is the minimum standard. I dare you to do better.”

The Bayonet Assault Course was one of many ways they put us on notice that we had not chosen to matriculate at UCLA.

“The spirit of the bayonet is to kill!”

At the Bayonet Assault Course, we learned and practiced the following series of hand-to-hand rifle / bayonet moves:

• Slash (diagonal, downward slicing cut)
• Smash (longitudinal strike with the butt, muzzle over the support side shoulder)
• Thrust (longitudinal stab with the bayonet / muzzle; there may have been some twisting involved)
• Butt stroke to the head (horizontal)
• Butt stroke to the kidney (upward diagonal)
• Butt stroke to the groin (vertical)

With all the butt strokes, as with the butt smash, the muzzle of the rifle wound up over the support side shoulder. Later, when I was a special agent serving warrants with an M4 (sans bayonet), Eyal Yanilov taught us muzzle jabs, parries, and blocking with the rifle like a side-handle baton, but always keeping the muzzle down range. We avoided techniques that pointed our muzzle back at the rest of the team.

My Garand had a different gas system plug, without a recess wide enough to accept the stud on the M5 series bayonets they issued us at the Assault Course. I had to suffer the indignity of running the Bayonet Assault Course, going through the motions each time, without a bayonet on my own rifle. Most of the other Basics had one, though.

As one ran through the Bayonet Assault Course, one would come up on manikins, tires, or posts representing enemy soldiers and their rifles. Each had a specific required series. A sign would say “Butt smash to head,” or “Parry, Stroke, & Slash,” or whatever.

Our Garands had been demilitarized with lead plugs in the barrels to prevent mischief. The rumor was that before they were plugged, a cadet had committed hara-kiri by placing a blank in the chamber, a pencil in the barrel, and firing the blank to drive the pencil through his head (not entirely unlike what happened later to actor Brandon Lee). Whether the pencil story was true or not, the lead barrel plugs made the Garand even heavier than it had started.

Plus, the air was rare at 7000′ feet or so, in Jack’s Valley. We had to low crawl on our faces and on our backs under concertina wire obstacles.

On one of my runs through the Bayonet Assault Course, I was out of breath and didn’t growl appropriately as I poked at a dummy with my bayonet-less muzzle.

“Come back here, mister!” the cadre supervising that obstacle shouted. “Sound off aggressively when you accomplish my obstacle!”

I redoubled my efforts, screaming “Die, you communist son of a bitch!” and hit it with all my might.

“Don’t swear on my Assault Course,” the cadre said, laughing and sending me on my way.

We also sparred against our classmates with genuine pugil sticks (the Marines train with pugil sticks first, to get the footwork and stability down, before moving on to bayonets).

I wasn’t very good at pugil sticks during Basic at the AF Academy, but my thrusts (similar to muzzle strikes, had we been wielding rifles instead of giant Q-tips) under my opponent Rusty B’s chin worked pretty well. Mostly, though, I was the one getting pummeled. Rusty was one of my mates, first in BCT Squadron A (“Aggressors”), and later in Cadet Squadron 31, the “Grim Reapers.”

“Grim Reapers” is probably too hostile and aggressive a squadron name for this modern era, and will no doubt soon be replaced with “Friendly Nation Builders” or some such.

RECONDO 

Two years later, in July of ’83, I attended a special session of the 4th Infantry Division’s Primary Noncommissioned Officer course at Camp Red Devil, Colorado. I say “special” because it was an exchange program, of sorts. Air Force Academy cadets spent three weeks at Ft Carson, learning a little about Army life (and how good they had it in the Air Force).

The program was called RECONDO (an abbreviation of Reconnaissance and Commando). We were taught LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol), as well as ambush patrol, and other patrolling techniques, as a vehicle for practicing leadership.

There were three squads of students, and we each took turns briefing, and then leading our squad through patrols and various MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System) combat exercises. We trained with grenades and LAW rockets and saw demonstrations of RPGs being fired. There were also some mech infantry (ambush response in M113s) and live fire US and ComBloc small arms familiarization thrown in there.

Most of the PNCOC instructors had unit patches from Vietnam on their right sleeves. Their main mission in life seemed to be convincing us to NOT become the kind of young lieutenant who heroically leads his troops to slaughter doing things like bayonet charges, if there is a smarter, more effective or less costly way of doing business.

The RECONDO cadre were men of few words, but I could tell they were very proud of being grunts, something most others were (and still are) neither able nor willing to do.

Attending the Army RECONDO course qualified us to be BCT cadre on the USAFA Tactical Leadership Decisions course. At TLD, I worked with a Captain Kinney, who had served on a UN peacekeeping force (I believe in the Middle East). Capt Kinney carried a very light field knife made by a then-unheard-of (on this side of the Atlantic) company called Glock (see below).

 

M7 Bayonet

Volant Scorpion

When my SP outfit went through the Volant Scorpion Airbase Ground Defense Evaluation at Little Rock AFB, Arkansas in the summer of 1988, we ran through a bayonet assault course with M7 bayonets on our M16s. One of my fellow blue beanies (security policemen), named Zaug, snapped the stock of his M16 in half doing a butt stroke.

I don’t remember any of the far-older Garands we bashed into things in Jack’s Valley breaking like that. I guess it’s true: “They don’t make ’em like they used to.”

Ops Desert Shield and Desert Storm

We were issued M7 bayonets when I deployed to Operation Desert Shield in August of 1990. The M7 had a dark grey parkerized blade. The tang was covered with a clam shell pair of plastic, checkered grips. Ours were made by Imperial.

Apart from opening MREs and other common cutting tasks, I only used a bayonet twice during that deployment, that I remember.

Before the war started, we were working on the King’s side (the “Royal Ramp”) of King Khalid International Airport when I locked myself out of a red and white checkered guard shack, at a flightline entry control point. I used the M7 to pry the pins out of the door hinges, and then to pry open the door.

Plus, I can honestly say I’ve taken a life with a bayonet, during wartime.

We were patrolling sector Echo 14 at night (we worked sundown to sun up) on the commercial side of the airport, when we came across “Worm,” a Saudi Amn troop who had parked his Suzuki Samurai type patrol vehicle by the side of the road.

He had run over a snake.

The poor thing was biting its own tail. Not sure why, whether trying to peel its body off of the road, or to put itself out of its misery, or some other fatally wounded, primordial urge. Worm wouldn’t get near it, and signaled that we shouldn’t either.

I didn’t want to get close to it, and I’m not into killing snakes, but I didn’t want it to suffer. Lacking that best wounded snake euthanizing tool, a long handled shovel, I put my bayonet on my M-16 and, standing as far away as possible, cut off its head.

Then we drove over to our sector’s border with the adjacent patrol sector. When the other fire team pulled up in their Hummer and parked to chat, I tossed the still slithering snake’s body though their window, into T. Lobraico’s lap.

Lobraico about climbed over the back of his seat.

Such hijinks kept us awake on those 12 hour midnight shifts. I hadn’t planned on bushwhacking any particular person; Lobraico’s window was just the first to roll up within range of my snake tossing abilities.

Like many of us, Lobraico later went into went into civilian law enforcement. He also wore the blue beret of the Security Police (subsequently renamed Security Forces) for many more years in the Air National Guard.

Lobraico’s son, TJ Jr, followed his father’s footsteps into the Security Forces. TJ Jr served in Iraq, and sadly, was subsequently killed in a gun battle outside the wire of Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.

 

Glock Survival Knife

Although I kept that M7 with my ALICE ruck sack, I carried a Glock Survival Knife 81 (inspired by Capt Kinney’s example) on the left suspender of my LBE, load bearing equipment. I wore a Mini-Maglite AA flashlight, with a red lens for reading maps, etc., fastened with tan duct-tape to the Glock scabbard.

The blade of my Glock Survival Knife was thin (quite similar to the clip-point M3), and it never seemed to take an edge. It had (almost overly) aggressive, sharply angled serrations on the spine.

The main reason I carried it was because it was very light weight (7.1 oz), and weather resistant (like their pistols, which took the law enforcement world by storm within a few years). Un-snapping it from its sheath was just a tad awkward, but it snapped in easily, and it stayed in its sheath when I carried it grip-down.

The Glock Field Knife had originally been intended as a bayonet (see below).

Plus, the Glock knife had a bottle opener built into the cross guard. When I first read on the internet that it was not intended as a bottle opener, and had been designed to hook onto the flash suppressor of the AUG, I was skeptical. I’d been issued an AUG-P and the shape of the suppressor just didn’t seem to fit with the shape of the bottle opener on the Glock knives.

There was no mention of a bayonet in the Steyr AUG-P manual (I’ve not read a manual for the military version).

Then I saw a copy of some early AUG advertising which showed the 78 stuck onto an optional mount with the top of the bottle opener braced against the lip of the flash suppressor (not hooked on it; see worldbayonets.com). One would have to install the optional mount on the AUG, and then remove the pommel of the knife to reveal the socket (the hollow grip) that would fit onto the mount.

The forward bend of the bottle opener made the hilt of the Glock knife less prone to jamming one’s thumb when using a “Saber” hold (similar to a “Hammer” or “Prison Shank” grip, but with the thumb braced along the spine; see M3 above and Dawson GP4 below). Holding a knife in Saber fashion didn’t concern me all that much till after I took a Gunsite / PDSI Edged Weapons course 7 years later, in March of 1998.

 

Phrobis III M9 bayonet

Sometime during Op Desert Storm, we were issued the Phrobis III M9 bayonet. Its blade was both wider and thicker than the M7’s. Eventually, I put that M9 on my LBE (replacing the much lighter Glock knife), ostensibly to test it under combat conditions.

Apart from dodging the occasional SCUD, the main thing we combatted was the mythical, sleep inducing “Z-monster,” trying to stay awake and alert as sentries should. Mainly, that M9 killed defenseless MRE packages.

The M9 (above in this photo) borrowed much from the AK bayonet (below), including the hole for the scabbard-mounted T-lug (like the pivot point of scissors) converting it into wire cutters.

The wire cutting feature gave you much more leverage than you could get with a Leatherman type multi-tool.

Multi-tools were not nearly so ubiquitous in those days as they are now.

Before I was issued that M9 bayonet, I made it a habit to always carry a small pair of needle nosed vice grips in my load bearing equipment (LBE), and not just for the wire cutter. Vice grips can give you a handle, and leverage, on a great many things that non-locking pliers cannot. The stick shift of my Jeep POV was held in place by a set of vice grips for years (an amateur mechanic had busted the flanges that were supposed to keep it mounted to the Borg-Warner T-5 transmission).

I often joked, when I was young and single, that if I had to be stuck on a deserted island for a year, and I could take either needle nosed vice grips and duct tape, or Lynda Carter, there would probably be occasions during the ensuing year when I’d wish I had some needle nosed vice grips.

I understand US Army Rangers used the M9’s wire cutter feature on chain-link fence to take an objective during Operation Just Cause.

Both the AK and the M9 bayonets had angled serrations on the spine, useful when sawing off branches for camouflage. Not too much vegetation where we were at, north of Riyadh.

Note that the blade of the AK bayonet is inverted (on the top); when mounted to a rifle it cuts by pulling up, rather than pushing down. I’m guessing that in ComBlock bayonet doctrine, their equivalent of a slash series was more of a “stick and lift.”

I took a course called AK 47 / 74 in CQB from Saulius “Sonny” Puzikas, a former Spetsnaz operator. We worked extensively on off-lines, disarms, retention, muzzle jabs, and other ways to beat someone with a Kalashnikov, but I don’t remember much attention being paid to bayonets.

The Soviets couldn’t (or wouldn’t) make a toilet seat that didn’t break; their consumer goods were of notoriously poor quality. Their weapons, on the other hand, were sturdy and practical. The chisel tip of the Mosin-Nagant spike bayonets doubled as a screw driver.

The M9 bayonet had a wider, Bowie style blade. In yet another example of life imitating art, the M9’s cylindrical grip was clearly modeled after Sylvester Stallone’s Lile survival knife from Rambo (a custom design that was, in turn, based in concept on the Vietnam era Randall 18 survival knives). Rambo’s custom made Lile and the Randal 18s had storage compartments in the hollow cylindrical grip; the M9 did not.

Despite the hollow-looking handle, the (earlier production) M9 was perfectly balanced, if heavy; the center of gravity was just aft of the guard, where it should be.

I later took a Bowie knife course, and found that the fat-bellied Bowies were meant to fight as choppers, as well as stabbers and slashers–similar to a khukuri,* bolo, or smatchet. Some other EW disciplines make the strongest part of the grip the last three (middle, ring, and pinkie) fingers. When using a chopper to chop, the wielder does just the opposite, holding the last three fingers relatively loosely, and allowing the weight of the blade and guard (if any) to pivot the knife around the index finger. The thumb locks in tight to keep you from losing the chopper.

The fat, circular cross-section of the M9 does not lend itself as well to this technique (at least with my stubby fingers) as the thinner, oval cross-sectioned rubber grip of the Marine Corps’ OKC 3S (see below). 

The original Phrobis III and Buck-made M9s had a single, deep, very cool looking fuller, commonly called a “blood groove” (a misnomer).

Swords were fullered, not to assist with blood letting, but rather to reduce weight (and the amount of metal used to make the sword) while retaining strength and rigidity, like the H-shaped cross section of an I-beam used in building construction. Later, cheaper production models of the M9 lacked the fuller.

As Marty McFly showed us, US domestic soda pop production had converted to twist-tops by the mid 1980s (when the M9 was adopted). More expensive imported beers still required a bottle opener.

Phrobis (& Buck) one-upped the Glock knives by incorporating not one, but TWO bottle openers into the guard of the M9. I suppose that would be useful if you were too drunk to figure out which side of the blade’s ricasso to put on top of the bottle cap; but if you were that impaired, and using a bayonet instead of a “church key,” you’d also be likely to wake up without fingers.

The Phrobis M9 was the only bayonet I was ever issued with a silver (or grey, bead blasted) blade. I believe it was stainless steel. Given that the purpose of the bayonet is primarily psychological, they all probably should have bright, shiny (at least polished blue) blades. Harder to fear something one cannot see.

The Leyland AmBus

One night we were hanging with some blokes from the RAF Regiment (or maybe British medics; I can’t remember now). Several field hospitals had been set up in and around our base, on the off-chance the blood-bath predicted by Senator Ted Kennedy actually occurred (God be praised, it did not; the ground campaign only lasted about 100 hours, and Coalition forces suffered 147 KIAs–148 if you include the MIA pilot who was later found dead). We were chatting beside an AmBus, or Ambulance Bus. It was a long, bus-sized military vehicle set up with litter tiers for transporting many casualties. The AmBus was made by a company called Leyland.

We knew the manufacturer because there was a metal LEYLAND plate (like a Ford or GMC emblem) hanging off the back end of the bus. It was affixed to the body of the AmBus by two bolts. One bolt had broken off when the bus had been backed into something, so the emblem hung down sideways.

We were bored–that perennial bedevilment of night watchmen. Jason B, the driver for our fire team, pulled out his magnificent Buck-made Phrobis III M9 bayonet, and tried to pry the Leyland emblem all the way off.

The blokes had always been somewhat less blessed in the supply department than the over-fed Yanks. Some of their gear seemed to date back to lend-lease in WWII. The M9 bayonets (at least the well-built, original ones) were famously expensive, and the British soldiers were horrified.

“I say, mate, aren’t you afraid you’ll snap that blade, using it as a pry bar?” one of them asked.

“Well, if it breaks, it ain’t worth a shit, now is it?” Jason replied.

The thick blade of Jason’s M9 did not break, but neither did the manufacturer’s emblem give up the ghost. I eventually just unscrewed the nut holding it on from the other side, and kept it as a memento of that Arabian night.

In March of ’91, when we left Saudi after Desert Storm, I gave the Glock knife to Faris, a Saudi Warrant Officer who served as our unit’s liaison to the Saudi Amn (security) forces.

I kept the M7 and the M9, and have them to this day. As a reward for our wartime service, our leadership ripped up the Forms 1297 (hand receipts) for the M9s before our very eyes, and nobody seemed to care much about the obsolete M7s. I never even cleaned off the paint transferred from the red and white checkered guard shack to the parkerized blade of that Imperial M7. It wears the paint as a badge of honor.

 

USMC 3S bayonet

Clint Smith described the latest USMC bayonet, the Ontario Knife Company 3S, as “basically a Ka-Bar.” It represents a welcome improvement in evolution of the bayonet. The big blade is thick and stout. 

If the blade were any bigger, it would practically be a Bowie-shaped Roman gladius hispaniensis.

The OKC 3S is balanced right at the guard. It has a thin, rubberized handle. The serrations on the aft third of the blade are very effective, and appear to be Spiderco inspired.

The 3S was developed during the opening years of the GWOT, because the Marines took their edged weapons seriously–all the more so during wartime.

The USMC still teaches the bayonet in boot camp.

And yet . . . there are even Marines who feel the bayonet is obsolete.

In an article called “Is the age of the Bayonet over? An example through the Marines of 1/1” (posted on 08 Sep 2016), a blogger named Miles (miles@tfb.tv) stated that when his unit deployed, they drew their rifles and bayonets at the armory. Each squad leader collected up all the bayonets in a locked duffle bag, and they stayed in the bags till they were turned in, stateside, after the deployment.

Apparently, their leaders felt they couldn’t be trusted with sharp objects, lest somebody lose a toe playing mumblety peg, or loose a bayonet (which would, inevitably, result in everybody in the unit having to search for it till it was found).

There may be just a hint of sour grapes in his conclusion, but Miles had some very valid points. In the age of standing around waiting to be blown up by suicide bombers, maintaining distance from the enemy is the goal, and training time is better spent practicing how to do a 9-line MedEvac report. Or, as Bing West said  in No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah,

“You can do almost anything with a bayonet–except sit on it.”

West, a Vietnam Marine and former Assistant Secretary of Defense, used the word “bayonet” to refer, figuratively, to the Marines, an assault force trained and equipped to tear down regimes. “Sitting on it” meant occupational, hearts and minds, nation building duties (West also noted, on page 18, that 68% of our fatalities in Iraq were due to IEDs).

West was paraphrasing Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, Napoleon’s foreign minister, who allegedly said that sitting on bayonets was uncomfortable. Incidentally, Napoleon himself was stabbed in the thigh by a British (or French rebel) bayonet at Fort Mulgrave, when he was a younger officer.

One problem with using bayonets AS bayonets, i.e., on the end of a rifle, is that mounting them requires malice of forethought. They mess with a barrel’s harmonics and make the rifle less accurate at distance. They make it longer and therefore more cumbersome in tight quarters. And yet they are only useful in tight quarters (unless they are used in a charge, as a psychological way to seize the initiative and force the enemy to break contact).

Accordingly, if a soldier is clearing a building or narrow alley, s/he will probably NOT have a bayonet on the rifle. When they are bushwhacked in that room or alley, they won’t have time to mount it. If an edged weapon is used at all, it is likely to go from the sheath to being sheathed, hilt-deep, in the enemy combatant, without spending any time on the rifle.

But that won’t happen if their leadership, like 1/1’s, doesn’t even trust them with sharp objects. In that case, rocks, helmets, maybe an entrenching tool will be used.

Or a pistol.

 

Dual Arming:

Replacing the Bayonet with a Pistol

In 2001, when I ran the arms room for Alpha Battery, 1/180 Field Artillery, AZ Army National Guard, we had over a hundred rifles, and several M60s, M203s, and M2s.

We had only ONE pistol: the commander’s Beretta M9.

For most of the previous century, the Army (and Marines) considered pistols officers’ scepters of office, or specialty weapons (for, say, a machine gunner to defend the emplacement if it is flanked and overrun).

In the first two decades of this century, however, the concept of “dual arming” has gained traction. More and more units are arming front line grunts and jarheads with pistols as well as rifles or MGs.

When I deployed in 1990, the Air Force let me carry a rifle and a sharp pointy thing every day. I drew a pistol when I worked certain posts or carried the hog (M60).

When I deployed in 2008, the Air Force let me carry a rifle, a pistol, and a sharp pointy thing. Every day.

Yet, almost NO military training teaches our troops how to fire a pistol from the clinch, or how to retain it when it’s out of the holster. Hopefully, that will change. But that’s not even the main problem.

The hardware, whether its a rifle, a pistol, a bayonet, or all three, is just an accessory to the software. Our programming is what’s lacking.

The Air Force issued me close-quarters weapons, but every year, during computer based Anti-Terrorism (AT) training, I was specifically taught NOT to wrestle over a pistol that was stuck in my face, and rather instructed to surrender to the Tango because of his “superior firepower” (direct quote from the AT training system, telling me why I got it wrong–again–by answering I would wrestle him over the gun; the test was multiple choice, and “I would off-line it, control it, poke him in the eyes, execute a standard Krav Maga disarm, and insert it in the Tango’s rectum” was not one of the available answers).

On 27 Apr 2011, a green-on-blue occurred in the Air Command and Control Center (ACCC) at Kabul International Airport. One of the Afghan pilots we’d trained, and issued a pistol to, walked into the ACCC and gunned down 7 “armed” USAF personnel, plus an unarmed Army contractor, at close or contact range.

Most of those in the other rooms (outside the ACCC) who heard the shooting feared a suicide bomber and fled the building.

Only two who were in an adjacent room pulled their Berettas, chambered their top rounds, and went to the aid of their brothers and sister in the ACCC. Captains Bradley and Nylander made contact with the turncoat in the hall, and engaged him with pistol fire. They mortally wounded him, but one of them (Capt Nathan Nylander) was killed in the process.

Why didn’t ALL of the armed personnel who were in the building go to the aid of their ambushed comrades, or at least bunker down and wait to ambush the bad guy when he came into their workspace?

Mainly because they assumed the attacker had explosives. But also because they thought of it as their workspace, not their battle space.

It’s not a matter of courage. If they were wanting of courage, they wouldn’t have volunteered to be liaisons to the Afghan Air Force outside secured US compounds.

The bad guy started with one pistol. Six of the Air Force personnel in the ACCC had pistols. So did just about everybody else in the building. “Superior firepower” my ass. Improperly cultivated Warrior Souls.

I’m not speaking ill of any of the dead. All USAF personnel in the building were forced by stupid policy to carry their pistols half-loaded, in Condition 3 (nothing in the chamber). The one good guy in the ACCC with a rifle had recently arrived in country, and had yet to be issued any ammo for it–but he carried the rifle, just the same.

Their commanders had physically disarmed them, so they became mentally disarmed.

The KIAs were surprised, by a person they knew and perhaps even trusted. It’s also possible there was collusion by the other Afghans in the ACCC; there was certainly passive inaction on their part (none of the Afghans in the room were killed). The third investigation found no evidence of collusion, but I don’t know how many of the Afghans who had been in the ACCC they were given access to, or interviewed.

I am calling out:

1. Everyone in the chain of command who made or tolerated the stupid policy of carrying a partially loaded (or completely unloaded) pistol in a war zone, in direct contravention of their troops’ training (they were taught to draw and fire with a round in the chamber); and
2. the people who created, approved, and implemented their white flag waving AT training. We need to be instilling the will to combat, not programming them to surrender to Islamist extremists who will not show them the tender mercies that Col Klink and Sgt Schultz gave to Hogan and his Heroes in that fictional television show.

This photo is of Anwar Tarawneh, the widow of Jordanian pilot (and Sunni Muslim) Moaz al-Kasasbeh (his face is on the sign behind her). Captain al-Kasasbeh was shot down, captured, and burned alive by the godless savages of daesh near Raqqa, Syria.

Although the third investigation into the Kabul ACCC incident found “no lack of warrior ethos,” and that investigator was privy to more of the facts than I was, I cannot agree, based upon my contemporary experience as an AF small arms trainer, and the end results.

I guess it depends on your definition of “warrior ethos.”

If “warrior ethos” consists of being brave enough to expose yourself to great risks outside the wire (and in the air) in “the graveyard of empires,” where many of the same peoples who’d fought off the Soviets, the Brits, and Alexander the Great’s Macedonians hate you and want to kill you, they had it.

If “warrior ethos” means being technically competent at your job, your own particular cog in the giant war machine that is the US military, those air (and OSI) warriors had it in spades.

But if “warrior ethos” means readiness, being “switched on,” willing, and able to engage in close quarters mortal combat on an instant’s notice, any they had started with was programmed out out of them by our bullshit training, and the fact that their own commanders clearly felt that the weapons we issued them for only that purpose were more dangerous to them than to our enemies.

So even if they were all Audie Murphys, we stacked the training and equipment odds against them.

Bayonet Assault Courses are one way (of several) to develop that warrior ethos.

 

The Army Throws in the Towel on Bayonets

The Bayonet Assault Course was dropped from Army basic training in about 2010.

Bayonet training is relatively inexpensive (compared to, say, live-fire marksmanship training) but the powers that be deemed there were too many other competing demands for the basic recruits’ time. Gotta squeeze in all that important sensitivity training somewhere. Besides, they argued, hardly anybody ever actually uses a bayonet as a bayonet.

That line of thinking entirely misses the point.

As far as I know, bayonet training has not made a comeback in the US Army, at least not in basic training for all soldiers. It may still be a part of some infantry courses.

–George H, lead instructor, Heloderm LLC

 

*Khukuri (Nepali: खुकुरी) is also anglicized kukri, although the khukuri spelling is closer to the way the Gurkhas pronounce the name of their trademark weapon.

 

Appendix I:

Who stabbed Marine Dragoon Galarza?

In 2014, The Guardian told the tragic tale of Falklands War vet Gordon Hoggan, who had been assigned to the 2nd Battallion of the Scots Guards.

Like many (BUT FAR FROM ALL) combat vets, Hoggan had some issues. He was haunted by his memories of the war, and had, for a period of time, been homeless.

One of his worst experiences, he said, had been stabbing an Argentine soldier in the neck with his bayonet.

The way Hoggan remembered it, he had approached the mouth of a cave on Mount Tumbledown and encountered two Argies within. He tried to shoot them, but at that moment his L1A1 SLR (Self-loading Rifle, their version of the FN FAL) quit. Reporters always say “it jammed,” but it may have simply run out of ammo without Hoggan realizing it. According to multiple Iraq tour (and US Army Ranger) Max M, “It’s impossible to count over 5 in a firefight,” and in the dark, Hoggan might not have noticed. When his SLR didn’t go “Bang,” Hoggan said he switched to plan B and gave the Argentine Marine the cold steel.

I don’t remember the Guardian mentioning the fate of the second soldier in the cave.

Hoggan said he took the helmet of the soldier he’d bayonetted as a war trophy (kinda morbid, but got to admit it’s more martial than the manufacturer’s plate off a Leyland AmBus). Decades later, he wished to bring some closure for both himself and the loved ones of the Argentine Dragoon he’d killed, by returning the helmet to the Marine’s family.

A touching human interest story, and it fit with the nearly universal media narrative that war breaks the souls of all participants, making them all, at best, future drug addicted homeless vets, and at worst, ticking time bombs who can go batshit crazy at any lone wolf moment.

The fact that the vast majority of veterans, while occasionally remembering the horrors they faced, return home to lead healthy, productive lives continuously escapes newscasters and script writers alike. The “Greatest Generation” that defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito not only fathered all those baby boomers; their peaceful, productive labors propelled the US economy to heretofore unknown heights.

In September, 2021, before presenting at a Church Security conference, I had the privilege of seeing David Grossman speak, in person, for the second time. LtCol Grossman, a former Army Ranger and West Point Psychology professor, is a world-renowned expert on (among other things) the effects of combat on the human psyche. Grossman said that many war veterans experience post-traumatic stress (PTS), but only a small percentage develop PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

In little more than one generation we’ve gone from failing to acknowledge that PTSD exists to thinking that everyone in the military has it. I’m not sure which lie is a greater disservice to our veterans.

Probably the latter.

They appreciate our gratitude. They neither want nor need our pity.

Journalists from the Argentine news organization Clarin tracked down the family of the dead Dragoon, whose story was real enough. His name was Jose Luis Galarza, and he was assigned to the Argentine 5th Marine Infantry Battallion on Mt Tumbledown. He had been killed in the mouth of a cave he and another Marine had been using for cover.

Galarza’s story was even tied to that of an Argentine national hero, Petty Officer Julio Saturnio Castillo, who left his own cover to defend his two troops in the cave, and shouted some harsh words to the English before he was gunned down.

After The Guardian ran Hoggan’s story, though, several soldiers who’d been on Mt Tumbledown said it couldn’t be true. For one thing, Hoggan’s unit had not been ordered to fix bayonets before the final push to take the summit. There’s nothing to prevent a soldier deciding on his own to mount a bayonet on his rifle. It was dark, so how would others know? But in any event, they said, Hoggan’s unit hadn’t been near where Galarza and Castillo fell.

Actually sticking enemy soldiers with bayonets is so very unusual, every single known incidence is likely to have been thoroughly documented in after action reports (AARs). Apparently programmed by Hollywood to believe combatants get bayonetted all the time, the Guardian reporters didn’t corroborate Hoggan’s story with any official reports that I’m aware of.

Then again, not every event in wartime winds up on paper. Maybe Hoggan did exactly what he said, or maybe he’s been telling a comrade’s story for so long, he actually believes it’s his own.

I don’t even know for sure whether Galarza died of a bayonet thrust to the throat or the far more common high velocity lead poisoning (or steel shrapnel). There were way too many dead on both sides and the Brits, who were once again in possession of the islands when the smoke cleared, may have had “neither the time nor the inclination” to conduct thorough autopsies on every fallen soldier, sailor, airman and marine–even their own.

One thing is clear: Galarza died for his country and his family’s honor, and somebody killed him.

 

Appendix II:

A few more EWs (edged weapons) I carried overseas

Ka-Bar K-2

On my last all expense paid Middle Eastern vacation, in 2008, I don’t remember even being issued a bayonet. My Security Forces squadron issued us Tanto-tipped folders instead.

That sturdy little liner-lock had OD green Micarta or G-10 panels. Although it bore the Ka-Bar K-2 logo, it was made in China, and was probably picked up by my squadron on a local purchase. I carried it clipped to my PT shorts the 11 or so hours a day I was off duty.

Dawson GP4

When I was on duty, for most of my 2008 tour, I carried “Lakshmi Bai,” a custom-made Dawson GP4. It was an earlier prototype, when they still had the sub-hilt.

I mounted it horizontally over the chest plate of my Level 4 vest, with the grip on the right side (but accessible to both hands, as a backup weapon should be). It had a telephone chord-type lanyard (look up “telephone chord” in a history book, kids).

I wasn’t really concerned about losing the knife, but I used the lanyard to hold my Kevlar groin protector up when I needed to take a leak. The groin protector, in turn, wasn’t so much for ballistic threats as to keep me from wracking myself in the junk with my M4 as it hung from a single-point attached to my vest.

Not a huge fan of single point rifle slings, but I used one exclusively in Kuwait, and often used one with my issued AUG-P and M4 when serving warrants as a special agent. In both uniforms, I was a tac-medic, carrying an EMT jump kit in a ruck sack. The single point kept me from having any tangles when it was time to unlimber the medic pack.

The convenience store at Ali al Salim sold small throw rugs. I lashed a couple rugs around one post of my bunk, creating a field expedient pell. Whenever I got back to my room after a shift, before I doffed my armor, I stood with my back to that bedpost and practiced about 5 left-handed presentations (to an ice-pick grip), stabbing that pell as if into the groin of someone who attacked me from behind, while I pressed an inert replica M9 into my holster as if to retain it (I turned in my real M9 at the armory when I got off duty). I moved up to an upward armpit strike, and then a downward subclavian stab, as I pivoted left and drew the “blue gun” M9 to a retention position with my right hand, while keeping my left hand, still holding the Dawson knife, up to protect my neck.

That sort of daily kata is not only useful to unwind after a long shift (and to annoy Justin, the other TSgt in the room, who worked the opposite shift, on the one day a week he got to sleep in). It’s a way to stay mentally sharp, to keep that last aspect of warrior ethos I mentioned, the switched-on readiness to engage in close quarters combat on a moment’s notice, front-loaded in your brain.

If you learn you’re going to be in a struggle for your life (and the lives of your coworkers) today, my advice is to call in sick. If you’re already at work when you get the engraved invitation, my advice is to bring a rifle, and many steroid-abusing friends with rifles. But few who find themselves suddenly thrust into an active killer event saw the email ahead of time.

Warrior ethos is important for professional soldiers, but you don’t need to be in the military or law enforcement to gain and maintain it. A waitress can be a warrior protector. Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone, and Anthony Saddler–a soldier, an airman, and a civilian, in respective, descending distance-from-the-tip-of-the-military-spear order–were ALL “switched-on” enough to respond effectively (with EMPTY HANDS) to a sudden surprise attack by a terrorist with an AK, a pistol, and a knife on the 15:17 train to Paris.

As part of my after-work ritual at Ali al Salim, I also faced the bedpost and practiced strong sided presentations, working the pell with slashes from 8 different angles. I practiced direct thrusts to about the pell’s solar plexus and trachea levels (with twisting motions at full extension). I finished the strong side foot forward drills with indirect thrusts to the left and right sides of the base of the neck / subclavian region of the pell, as if working around a hostage.

Coming at the upper left side of the pell in such an indirect, backhand manner was always my weakest of those moves, all of which I’d learned from Richard Ryan at Gunsite. Lakshmi Bai’s sub hilt helped, as a “saber” grip is hard to maintain at that angle. But it was a good-feeling back stretch, after spending 14 hours hauling 60+ pounds of armor, ammo, and gear around.

Then I switched up my foot position, closed with the bedpost as if in tight quarters and unable to back out, and practiced the “Singer Sewing Machine.”

That Dawson GP4 had very aggressive thumb bracing in the hilt. Thumb bracing is a good thing if you stick the knife into something that stops its forward motion, when your hand’s momentum makes it tend to keep going. This is one of several reasons that kitchen knives aren’t the best for fighting.

However, Lakshmi Bai’s hilt kept jamming my thumb. Over the months, the more I practiced with that Dawson, the less enthusiastic my forward thrusts became.

I could have switched to a prison shank or hammer grip for those forward thrusts, at least for the switch-foot Singer sewing machine practice. Instead, I maintained my saber grip but didn’t strike as hard.

You’re either all-in, or you’re not.

Cold Steel SRK

I wound up giving that beautiful, functional Dawson away and replaced it with a far more generic, rubber handled Cold Steel SRK. Plenty sharp enough, it never held quite the edge, or felt as handy, as that that Dawson did, nor was it nearly as elegant. But I wasn’t afraid to stick it into the pell full-speed.

The world’s best tools won’t help anybody who doesn’t train to master them.