A word about knives

 

Tom holding 2 Thai daou knives

THERE are many schools of thought on the types of knives/ Axes/hatchets/ and Tomahawks to use in the outdoors. Some people like expensive blades, some are frugal and don’t want to spend too much on a knife. I tend to be on the frugal side. My personal favorite knives are any type of Swiss Army Knife, that has a scissors and a saw. And my faithful old Green River knife .

I picked up my GRK In a junk shop in Moab ,Utah for $6.00 back in 1989 and have been carrying it ever since. A lot of folks like the Mora knives from Sweden, I dont really care for them due to the fact the handles and blades tend to break under normal use, and especially in the cold.

I have been all over the world and spent time with many native peoples and have seen knives made from old saw blades , punched out of an old army mess kit, or made from bearings and leaf springs from old trucks. I have studied knife making and blacksmithing in Thailand, Nepal and The Philippines and have seen many skilled knife and tool makers, But a lot of these craftsmen are not skilled in the use of the blades they make – some are, but not all.

My conclusion is that its not the tool or knife, or how much it costs, or the maker, but your familiarity and skill with it . That takes practice.

For a while now I have been considering a replacement for my veteran Green River Knife. I ambled my way over to Trapper Jon’s Knife Shop in Sierra Vista, Arizona to take a look at all the knives he has on offer in his shop.

I was a little shocked and amazed at all of the “Survival Knives” that there are out there in the world. There were numerous Xb15/commandosurvival/navySEAL/bushcraft knives in Jon’s shop but all of this techno new age gear tends to get on my nerves a bit. I seem to always gravitate to the older style knives like the “Old Hickory”, Case and of course the knives by Green River Forge.

The prices for the majority of these techno blades was to say the least – shocking to this old drifter. There is no way I would pay $300.00 for a knife. I have been using my GRK since 1989, this knife has been my constant companion for all of my wilderness adventures and numerous trips around the world. I borrowed the name for my knife from Big Foot Wallace the famous Texas Ranger and Scout from the early days of Texas history. Mr. Wallace had some colorful names for his animals and equipment.

Back when I was working as a wilderness guide/instructor it seemed to me that all wilderness instructors to include those at the Boulder Outdoor survival School (B.O.S.S.) used the Green River knife. And, if I remember correctly Cody AKA “the aboriginal” used one also.

Mors Kochanski is a great teacher, writer and wilderness Bum but, I credit (or blame) Mors for introducing the Mora knife to the American survival community. Mors showed up at the B.O.S.S. Sponsored Rabbit stick rendezvous in Rexburg, Idaho back in 1990 with a Mora slung around his neck. The next thing you know all of the B.O.S.S. Guys and gals were wearing one also. The Mora is a good knife for certain applications but cannot compete with a GRK for the long haul. Now, all of you Mora lovers out there can get your panties in a wad if you want to, I dont care what your opinion is, I dont like moras – period. But, if I was marooned on a deserted island and a case of mora knives washed up on the beach I would use them , all of them, because it would take a case of them to do the job of one GRK.

While working as the Lead Survival and Impact Instructor at a Wilderness therapy program in Utah, I had to luck to spend a lot of time in the field, either with the youth or in my off duty time with some like-minded staff. On one such outing with the youth we were crossing the desert to a place call “Bloody Hands Gap” (due to the red painted hand prints under an overhang in the gap between the rocks), I found a dead horse and skinned out a good sized chunk of hide and took some sinews from the tendons. The hide I scraped and dried into raw hide then soaked it and sewed it around “Ol’ Butch” to make the sheath. Once it had dried the hide made a custom fit on the handle and blade. I have been using this same sheath almost as long as I have had the knife. I keep a saddle makers needle stuck into the stitching on the back of the sheath for making emergency repairs on my gear – that is if I’m not in Agave country.

I wear my knife slung around my neck and inside my shirt depending on if I’m hiking or riding a horse or mule. The wearing of a neck knife is not a recent idea invented by the internet survival GURUs, it has been around for centuries and was the primary way of wearing a knife for most native Americans. I used a leather strap at first but those soon rot from sweat etc. I now use a narrow piece of webbing held in place with 2 short pieces of para cord (550 to you sticklers). The webbing was found in the desert south of the Chiricahua mountains of Arizona in an illegal alien lay up site, the 550, I got from the dumpster on the army base.

The handle of my old knife appears to be Walnut wood, Back in those days, as in today, I have been using the handle as a socket for my Bow and Drill fire sets. I usually carry 2 or 3 tinder bundles, and a spindle or two with me in my pack, if need be, ill make a board and bow. String can be made from a number of sources.

I have read that people frown on using the handle for a B&D socket because it ruins the handle…haha, I have been doing it for 28 years now and it is still serviceable and will take me down the trail a bit further, I’m sure. People who make statements like that are most likely the arm chair outdoors men who only play at survival or wilderness subjects and follow the video survival “Gurus” I have been seeing lately.

I do very little in the way of maintenance on this old knife other than oiling the blade with what ever I can find to oil it with. Recently in Thailand, I used the fat from some cooked chicken skin to grease up both the sheath and the blade. I have used the back of the blade as a striker for making flint and steel fires and use either old pieces of charcoal from a cold fire pit or some horse hoof fungus to catch the spark. The stones I just keep an eye out for as I hike, my favorite stone to use though is petrified wood but the Utah flint is excellent stuff as is the Mississippi river chert.

To sharpen my knife I usually use the river stone method taught to my by my Aeta Negrito friend in the Philippines, it works well and makes carrying a stone unnecessary, you simply pick up one in the creek bottom. While in Thailand I watched my lady friend sharpen my jungle knife on a large chunk of coral in the front yard of her house, apparently her family has been using this stone to sharpen all manner of edged tools for several generations. I’ll be taking two knives on my next trek, a Swiss army knife and my GRK. I like to keep it simple and uncomplicated. From what I have read and seen it looks like folks now a days are really into survival but seem to be more gear oriented then skill oriented.

To me that is sad – The more you know in your head the less you need to carry on your back. It is my hope that at least a few of the more hardy and independent thinking true adventurers out there will “cut” the gear umbilical cord which tethers them to society, grab their favorite knife and hit the trail.

The art of travel by Francis Galton

 

This is a great book, Its choco block full of old school fieldcraft skills. I doubt that any modern bushcrafters could actually do a majority of the skills . My oldest brother gave me this book for christmas way back in 1970. It has remained my favorite book on wilderness skills all this time.

Give it a read it is well worth your time. 

The Desert by J.C. VanDyke - "White men in the west"

https://youtube.com/shorts/vgFEC5SnuDU?feature=share 

Naga regiment. The head hunters of the Indian army

 

"The Headhunters"

The Naga Regiment is an infantry regiment of the Indian Army. It is among the youngest regiments of the Indian Army - the first battalion was raised in Ranikhet, Kumaon in 1970. The regiment recruits mainly from Nagaland, in northeast India.

The first battalion of the regiment (1 Naga) was raised at the Kumaon Regimental Centre, Ranikhet on 1 November 1970 under the command of Lt. Col. R.N. Mahajan, VSM. Being the only battalion, it was then designated as the Naga Regiment. The manpower to raise this battalion was provided by battalions of the Kumaon Regiment, Garhwal Rifles and 3 Gorkha Rifles. 69 Nagas were enrolled directly from rehabilitation camps of underground Nagas. However, the regiment's troops were to be 50% Nagas and 50% of an equal number of Kumaonis, Garhwalis and Gorkhas. Since many Kumaon battalions had been associated with Nagaland, particularly in the years preceding the raising of the Naga Regiment, it was affiliated to the Kumaon Regiment for all regimental matters. The second battalion (2 Naga) was raised on 11 February 1985 at Haldwani and the third battalion (3 Naga) was raised on 01 October 2009 at Haldwani.

The traditional Naga weapons viz the Dao, the Spear and the prestigious Mithun have been integrated into the Regimental Crest. The regiment's colours are gold, green and red - the gold signifies the rising sun, the green signifies the infantry and red is the colour of authority among Nagas. 1 Naga was presented with 'Colours' on 6 May 1978 at Dehradun by Shri Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the President of India and 2 Naga was presented with 'Colours' on 10 May 1990 by General V.N. Sharma, PVSM, ADC, the Chief of Army Staff.

Takasago volunteer Teruo Nakamura

Teruo Nakamura (中村 輝夫, Nakamura Teruo, born Attun Palalin; also known as Suniuo; 8 October 1919 – 15 June 1979) was a Taiwanese-Japanese soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army who fought for Japan in World War II and did not surrender until 1974. He was the last known Japanese holdout to surrender after the end of hostilities in 1945.

Military service

Nakamura was an Amis aborigine, born 8 October 1919. In November 1943, he enlisted in a Takasago Volunteer Unit of the Imperial Japanese Army. Nakamura was stationed on Morotai Island, in the Dutch East Indies, shortly before the Allies overran that island in the September 1944 Battle of Morotai. Allegedly, the Imperial Japanese Army declared Nakamura dead on 13 November 1944.

After the Allies captured the island, it appears Nakamura remained there with other stragglers well into the 1950s, though setting off for extended periods on his own. In 1956, apparently, he relinquished his allegiance with his fellow holdouts, and set off to construct a solitary camp consisting of a small hut in a 20 m × 30 m (66 ft × 98 ft) fenced field.

Discovery

Nakamura's hut was accidentally discovered by a pilot in mid-1974. In November of that year, the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta requested assistance from the Indonesian government in organizing a search mission, which was conducted by the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai, leading to Nakamura's arrest by Indonesian soldiers on 18 December 1974. He was flown to Jakarta and hospitalized there.

News of his discovery reached Japan on the 27th. Nakamura decided to be repatriated straight to Taiwan, bypassing Japan. Upon his return, the Taiwanese press referred to him as Lee Kuang-hui (李光輝), a name he learned of only after his repatriation.Initially, the Chinese Nationalist government on Taiwan did not receive him well, seeing him as a Japanese loyalist.

At the time, the Japanese public's perceptions of Nakamura and his repatriation differed considerably from those of earlier holdouts, such as Hirō Onoda, who had been discovered only a few months earlier and was both an officer and ethnically Japanese. As a private in a colonial unit in foreign soil, Nakamura was not entitled to a pension (due to a 1953 change in the law on pensions), thus received only the minimal sum of ¥68,000 (US $227.59 at the time, US $1,300 in 2021).^[1] This caused a considerable outcry in the press, motivating the Taiwanese government and the public to donate a total of ¥4,250,000 to Nakamura

Five years after his repatriation, on 15 June 1979, Nakamura died of lung cancer.

Takasago volunteers WW2

 

                                            

                                        These men carried their Native blades into Battle the

                                        Ayatal, Seediq and Tukuru head hunting blades

Takasago volunteers (高砂義勇隊, Takasago Giyūtai) were volunteer soldiers in the Imperial Japanese Army, recruited from Taiwanese indigenous peoples (also known as Taiwanese aborigines) during World War II. The Takasago volunteers are distinguished from ethnic Chinese Taiwanese volunteers.

After the Empire of Japan's annexation of Taiwan as a result of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, the Japanese government pursued a policy of cultural assimilation, directed especially towards the various groups of Taiwanese aborigines.

The Imperial Japanese Army was interested in the use of Taiwanese indigenous people in special forces operations, as they were viewed as being more physically capable of operating in the tropical and sub-tropical regions in Southeast Asia than ethnic Japanese, and, coming from a hunter-gatherer culture, would be able to operate with minimal logistics support.

The Japanese military recruited many young men from friendly indigenous groups into service shortly before the start of World War II. The total number was confidential and estimates on the numbers recruited range from 1,800 to 5,000 men. Training was under the direction of officers from the Nakano School, which specialized in insurgency and guerilla warfare.

Initially assigned to transport and supply units, as the war condition progressively deteriorated for Imperial Japanese forces, Takasago volunteers were later sent to frontline areas as combat troops (before ethnic Chinese Taiwanese volunteers used in the same way). Units consisting entirely of Takasago volunteers served with distinction in the Philippines, Netherlands East Indies, Solomon Islands and New Guinea, where they fought against American and Australian forces.

Towards the end of the war, 15 officers and 45 enlisted members of the Takasago Volunteers were organized into the Kaoru Special Attack Corps for a suicide mission similar to that of the Giretsu Kuteitai, and attacked a United States Army Air Forces landing strip on Leyte. The Takasago Volunteers were well known for their jungle survival ability.

The most notable Takasago Volunteer is Teruo Nakamura (Attun Palalin), the last confirmed Japanese holdout, who surrendered on Morotai Island in Indonesia in December 1974. Nakamura was an Amis volunteer and was discovered 29 years, 3 months, and 16 days after the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed in August 1945, having lived in solitude in the jungle for almost 20 years after leaving other holdouts in 1956.

Sergeant Yokoi on Guam and 2 other Japanese Army holdouts

 

When I in my 2nd year of high school, I remember reading about sergeant Yokoi. In fact I still have the news paper story I cut from my local home town news paper. It For most of the 28 years that Shoichi Yokoi, a lance corporal in the Japanese Army of world War II, was hiding in the jungles of Guam, he firmly believed his former comrades would one day return for him.

It wasn't until years later that I learned about Lt. Hiroo Onoda who was another hold out in the Philippines. These men both held out for about the same about of time - roughly 28 years. The difference between the 2 is that Onoda continued to wage "war" of sorts on the local folks in the PI. Where as Yokoi was more survival oriented. I also read that he was an apprentis tailor before being drafted. His learned survival skills are impressive. He dug a pit shelter using a shovel he made from an artillery shell, He fabricated smoke filters to hide his cooking fires, he fashioned cooking pots from old canteens, and, he used his tailor skills to fashion clothing, using his Tailor scissors he brought with him to war.

However, The most notable Japanese Army holdout  was Takasago Volunteer Teruo Nakamura (Attun Palalin), the last confirmed Japanese holdout, who surrendered on Morotai Island in Indonesia in December 1974. The Native Taiwanese men were organized into Takasago volunteer units and were issued uniforms, weapons/ammo and minimal foods. As "Native people" they were expected to forage from the land and take whatever else they needed from the enemy.

The Taiwanese conscripts were not incensed with the warriors code - at least not in the Japanese sense. Those Taiwanese were head hunters and warriors in their own culture no where near the Japanese ideology about warfare.

Anyhoo, Yokoi's story and that of Onoda and that of Nakamura are interesting , especially for me from a survival standpoint. Im certain that anyone interested in history and survival would enjoy the book about him Titled "28 years in the Guam jungle"

Tomahawk - out!

Hiroo Onoda WW2 Japanese Holdout

 

Onoda was a hard core survivor and soldier. His book "My thirty year war" is in essence a decent survival manual about how to survive in the jungle.  The book has great illustrations and discusses how Onoda stored ammo, kept his rifle clean and functional, It also shows some traps he used and hot to dry meat and make fire. Its a Tomahawk recommended read.

Hiroo Onoda (Japanese: 小野田 寛郎, Hepburn: Onoda Hiroo, 19 March 1922 – 16 January 2014) was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who fought in World War II and was a Japanese holdout who did not surrender at the war's end in August 1945. After the war ended, Onoda spent 29 years hiding in the Philippines until his former commander travelled from Japan to formally relieve him from duty by order of Emperor Shōwa in 1974.^[1][2] He held the rank of second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army. He was the penultimate Japanese soldier to surrender, with Teruo Nakamura surrendering later in 1974.

The 5217th Reconnaissance Battalion (Provisional) WW2

The 5217th Reconnaissance Battalion (Provisional) was formed at Camp Tabragalba in Queensland, Australia, in October of 1943 [1]. Comprising Filipinos and Filipino-Americans, the mission of the 5217th was intelligence and commando operations on the Philippine Islands. The brass decided that airborne training would augment the ability of the 5217th to conduct its intelligence work, and to Walter was given the job of seeing that such training was provided. With that mandate in hand, Walter, with the assistance of four enlisted men from the 503d PIR, proceeded to establish a jump school, known simply as Camp X, near Brisbane, Australia. The school’s 3-week program included all aspects of Ft. Benning’s Parachute School program except the 250-foot towers. "We found out very quickly that the average Filipino was too light for a 28-foot main chute," Walter recalls [2]. "Luckily, we didn’t lose anyone, but some of them stayed up an awfully long time. I can recall hearing them call out, ‘Lt. Walter, will I come down?’" Camp X graduated two classes, jump qualifying a total of 66 men. The Filipinos – who had volunteered to serve in the Reconnaissance Battalion and then volunteered for jump school - greatly impressed Walter. Not a single trainee who passed through Walter’s jump school refused to jump. The Japanese retreat in the Philippines was faster than anticipated, and the paratroopers of the 5217th were never employed in an airborne role in forward combat areas. But an opportunity to put their jump training to use arose in May 1945 when an American aircraft crash-landed in the mountainous jungle of central New Guinea, a region much of which bore the disquieting notation Unknown on the maps that were then available. A few weeks before the crash, Walter, now a captain,  had lunched with his former biology teacher from Black Foxe Military Institute, who was now the Chemical Warfare Officer of the Far East Air Service Command (FEASC). Later, this officer informed the Commander of FEASC that Walter had trained paratroopers under his command. With all other airborne units in SWPA then committed to combat, FEASC knew to whom to turn when the plane went down. When Walter asked for volunteers to effect a rescue of the crash survivors, to a man the paratroopers stepped forward. On the following day, Walter and eight enlisted men parachuted into a large valley some 10-15 miles from the crash site to set up a base camp to begin hacking out a landing strip for the gliders, in which they were to be picked up and evacuated. The survivors of the crash were brought to the base camp to recuperate from their injuries and regain their strength, while the paratroopers put the finishing touches to the landing strip. Then, they all sat back to await the gliders. The natives the party encountered proved to be primitive but friendly. As friendly as the natives were, however, their practice of never bathing and coating their bodies with a mixture of pig grease and charcoal necessitated barring them from the paratroopers’ camp. Even so, upon the paratroopers’ return to base camp after completion of the mission, their first act was to burn their web gear, the odor of which was all too reminiscent of the hosts they had left behind.   Crash Survivor Cpl. Margaret Hastings at "Shangri-La" Base Camp. On July 2, 1945, after having spent 42 days in the valley, the party was extracted in three glider pick-ups. One cannot help wondering how the natives – who probably never before had encountered anyone from the outside world – viewed the strange arrival and departure of their visitors. Religions have been founded on events less mystical than those must have seemed. The mission did not go unnoticed by the press, which dubbed it "Rescue from Shangri-La" [2]. Indeed, when the press covering the rescue insisted on one of their number parachuting into the valley to cover the mission ‘up close and personal’, the brass acquiesced. Alex McCann, then a journalist with the Netherlands Indies Government Information Service, drew the assignment. His confidence buoyed by a crash course in parachuting and by a fifth of Boodles gin, McCann parachuted into the valley to document the rescue.   Airborne Section, 5217th Reconnaissance Bn.   Shortly after the mission, the 5217th, now the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, was sent to Manila, where Walter and his cadre were returned to the 503d PRCT. Shortly thereafter, in August of 1945, the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion was disbanded and the men reassigned. Few friendships are as enduring as those that derive from acts of bravery or shared hardships. And so it was that in April of 1995, Walter and one of the medics who parachuted with him into "Shangri-La" gathered with the two remaining survivors of the plane crash on the 50th anniversary of the rescue.  The Insignia Besides providing the information and the photographs used in this article, LTC Walter provided the patch (top). Of the patch, Walter wrote: "…I am enclosing the chest patch, which we designed in Hollandia for wear by members of the 1st Rcn. Bn. who were qualified jumpers. We petitioned GHQ [for approval] and our request was denied, due to the fact only a small segment of the Battalion was airborne. I am particularly proud of the chest patch, as it brings back some very fond memories of many officers and men who not only were excellent soldiers and fighting men, but who became outstanding jumpers. It might be of interest to note that there was never one refusal to jump out of the total of close to 90 people who started training and the 66 who ultimately qualified. I have always been very proud to have been associated with the 5217th/1st Recon. I will always remember the very fine officers and men whom I trained and worked with.. It was a most memorable time of my life [2]." Walter’s "chest patch" depicts a parachute as well as elements symbolizing the 5217th/1st Reconnaissance Battalion: the stars of the Southern Cross, the head of a carabao, and the unit’s motto, Bahala Na, meaning "come what will." Authentic examples of the sleeve patch of the 5217th are very rare. (A close-but-no-cigar effort to reproduce this patch occurred in the ‘50s. The copies feature an olive drab border, a rounded-shield shape, and, erroneously, the Big Dipper rather than the Southern Cross.) The "chest patch" is even rarer - the author is unaware of any in collections other than his own. https://corregidor.org/heritage_battalion/hughes/hughes.html

U.S. Army Filipino Bolo Battalion WW2

 

The 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment was a segregated United States Army infantry regiment made up of Filipino Americans from the continental United States and a few veterans of the Battle of the Philippines that saw combat during World War II. It was formed and activated at Camp San Luis Obispo, California, under the auspices of the California National Guard. Originally created as a battalion, it was declared a regiment on 13 July 1942. Deployed initially to New Guinea in 1944, it became a source of manpower for special forces and units that would serve in occupied territories. In 1945, it deployed to the Philippines, where it first saw combat as a unit. After major combat operations, it remained in the Philippines until it returned to California and was deactivated in 1946 at Camp Stoneman.