Best Publications for Info on WWII USN or USMC Knives

[Ironlip]

Are there better sources of information about the USN Mark 1 knife and the USN & USMC Mark 2 knife than Cole Book III and Mike Silvey's book Knives of the United States Military World War II? Both are great of course and a wealth of information. But if I read them correctly, I think they leave a lot of questions unanswered particularly about the Mark 2. Such as:

Were there any Camillus, or other makers, thick pommel USMC knives that were held together with the screw used on USN knives or was that method unique to Camillus?

Were the thick pommel Ka-Bars without USMC or USN marks on the tang early USMC issue?

Were blued and parkerized knives manufactured concurrently?

When were the plastic scabbards introduced?

Did they replace the leather ones or were the two issued concurrently?

Maybe this information is not known and those two books are the best available. Any direction to other sources would be appreciated.

And the reference to Cole III is not a typo. I've not been able to get a copy of book IV yet. It may well answer some of the questions or all.

[sac troop]

If your going to be asking questions in these details, one place you should be aware of is linked to below:

http://usmilitaryknives.com/Table%20of%20Contents.htm

Specifically deals with U.S. Military blades. The archived index of previous Knotes can be searched for keywords. Can be a little daunting at first with all the information contained there and having to dig for much of it.

Seems like there is a lot yet to be written about the Mark 1 knives. More information available on the 1219C2 pattern but in many cases you have to dig.

Knife World Magazine has published some very good articles over the years on specific subjects and many of them can still be purchased.
"Military Knives a Reference Book" is IMHO a must have reference and not a big investment of money. You can check it out thru Knife World or check out Amazon.

From my personal experience there is no one complete reference source. But the hunting, either for the information or the knives themselves is at least half the fun.

Happy hunting.

[Bayonet]

A few answsers

To my knowledge, there is not a single source to answer your questions. Frank Trzaska did some fine articles on these in Knife World some years back and you may be able to get the back issues from them. http://www.knifeworld.com/

December 2005, January 2006, August 2006.

To attempt to provide a quick answer to your questions:

1. Only Camillus used the screw on pommel and only on early Navy Mark 2s.

2. Most collectors feel that the non-service marked KaBars were fairly early, probably about the time that they started the USN Mark 2 and were supplying the knives to both services.

3. In most cases the blued version was first then went to Parkerized. KaBar MAY have made both concurrently for a short time before going to only Parkerized.

4. The plastic scabbards began to be made in very late 1943.

5. The Navy converted to the plastic scabbard entirely by early 1944. The Marines never adopted the plastic scabbard, although some individual Marines managed to replace the leather with a Navy scabbard on their own.

If you do not have the Knife World book Military Knives, A Reference Book http://www.knifeworld.com/milknivrefbo.html get it. By far the most informative book out on US military knives in general, and inexpensive!

If you are not a member of the US Militaria Forum http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ please feel free to join us. We have a lot of military knife and bayonet collectors and the Edged Weapons section is a good place to visit.