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Originally posted by NousDefionsDoc
Who can tell me what knife it is, who designed it, and why it was chosen?
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Steeped in legend, but the answer isn't really clear. Three knives (stilettos, really) compete for the honor - the V-42 used by the First Special Service Force, the Fairbairn-Sykes used by Rangers and the OSS dagger. All were ultimately based on the Fairbairn-Sykes, though. The 1st SSF, the Rangers and the OSS Jedburgh teams were all part of the heritage of SF, and veterans of these units were there at SF's birth, so all have a claim.
The Wilkinson-made knifes issued to Rangers in England were straightforward Fairbairn-Sykes types.
The OSS knife made by Landers, Frary & Clark was based on the Fairbairn-Sykes (Fairbairn himself designed the "pancake-flipper" sheath). The knife on the USASOC patch and crest is based on the OSS design.
The official story is that the patch designed by Capt. John Frye used the design of the V-42 commando knife ("Knife, Fighting Commando Type V-42, including Leather Sheath"). The V-42 was made by W.R. Case & Co. and was based on a design sketched out by Col. Robert Frederick, Pat O'Neill* and Col. Orval Baldwin.
But while the knife on the SF crest is more clearly a V-42 - note the pointed skull crusher pommel (Col. Baldwin's idea) - the knife on the SF patch is less distinct. It has a rounded end more like a Fairbairn-Sykes or OSS knife. And while it may have been adapted from these WW2 stilettos, it actually looks more like a Roman gladius in its dimensions, so maybe Capt. Frye had more than one weapon in mind.
Many China Marines serving in Shanghai in the 1930s picked up Fairbairn-Sykes knives (a China Marine in one of WEB Griffin's series of novels was portrayed as having played poker with Supt. Fairbairn) and they were popular, especially with some of the early Raiders. But the U.S.-manufactured versions supplied to the Corps were not well-made and Marines trained in regular knife-fighting rather than stiletto-specific techniques tended to break them, so they lost their luster in the Corps.
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* SGM Pat O'Neill was a veteran of the Shanghai Municipal Police who knew both Fairbairns and Mr. Sykes and was familiar with their knife. In The Devil's Brigade, he was the bespectacled guy who gives Claude Akins a block of hand-to-hand combat instruction in the mess hall.