British and Commonwealth Military Knives

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Cutlery Compendium
Review: This is a highly impressive work. Every individual item discussed is keyed to an individual text and is often accompanied by multi-views and enlargements. In many cases, there is documentation, most of which is letters from manufacturers and government procurement agencies. There is very little referencing to previous works. This is not an omnium-gatherum nor a synthesis of existing works. It is a new beginning. The only thing remotely as detailed or as useful is Robert Baeurlein's thorough work on Allied Fighting Knives which is confined to fighting knives, and most of it is about U.S. patterns and is much more heavily textually descriptive with many first hand accounts and is based on much archival research. This work divides the various types of blades and edged tools up by the major Commonwealth nations, beginning in the 1880s and continuing up till the present decade. The major countries are Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India. The amount of items covered lessens the further one gets from Britain, but that is understandable. Everything including commercial knives sold to officers and explorers is covered. There is no coverage of items produced in the other Far Eastern areas for the Commonwealth Forces nor of anything produced in the white-ruled countries of the former Rhodesia and in South Africa, though both are known for having local cutlery industries. This may be due to the lack of contacts, or the political situation in the recent years that precluded social contact between Britain and those lands. As in any work of this monumentality, it is not perfect. No matter how long one works, there will always be something omitted. It is the nature of the endeavour. The author has even added a chapter of last minute discoveries in his attempt to be as encyclopedic as possible. I learned much from this book and I will refer to it again in my own writings. But, a few minor quibbles. The author fails to distinguish between the use of the two synonyms--matchet and machete. The latter being the original Spanish term and used in North America also, and the former, the official British term. Both are pronounced identically except for the e on the end--the t being silent. Because of his use of the American term throughout, he missed the significance of the derivation of the term for a short bladed fighting instrument of WW II, the smatchet, usually pronounced to rhyme with hatchet, but again the t is silent. Smatchet is a contraction of small + matchet. He also fails to recognize the tool-weapon issued to native troops of northern Burma by its true name of dah and lumps it in with machetes. He has found a few more patterns of dahs than I have. Of course, these crudely finished implements are so badly marked that they are unreadable. And he may have included some similar tools made in southern China for local use. These are much better finished than British or Indian issued patterns. And finally he missed a rather unusual and strange machete made in Australia in WW II. But, with those few exceptions, one with any interest in this material should buy this book. I will just give it an A not an A+. You can throw away that old copy of Stephens' now.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book about British knives
Review: Very good review of all military knives of the British empire 1800-today.
Cover F-S Fighting knives in a good way.
Plenty of pictures.
It is something you must buy!