5" Ka-Bar

[Cyber Shot]

From eBay:

Could someone give me their opinion.

The knife blade is 5" long and the handle is smaller than my Mk 2 Ka-Bar.

[Cyber Shot]

5" blade

[Cyber Shot]

The sheath is for a 6" blade but this knife was carried in this sheath.

[Cyber Shot]

I stand corrected on the blade length. It's 6". But then you all know that.

[poch]

This knife is so called Commando made during WWII by Union Cutlery. There were 2 types - parkerized and bright. This scabbard is not original to this knife.

[thorin6]

Here is is with the correct sheath. These were bought and issued by the US Army in 1942 along with ones from PAL, Robeson, Kinfolks, Queen City, and Case.

 

 

[1SG_1st_Cav]

Beautiful knives!

[Bob Hudson]

These were private purchase, not issue. Here's a thread about them: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/465-wwii-ka-bar-commando/

[camillus]

This is an interesting discussion, thanks for the link Bob

[poch]

Here is one from my collection. This knife was used during WWII by Fred M. De Vries from US Navy.

 

[poch]

For comparing - here is the parkerized one.

[SKIPH]

Poch- Thanks for showing the pictures. I did not know that Ka-Bar made them without a fuller. SKIP

[Cyber Shot]

Could these knives be chrome plated? I have seen several on Ebay and none show any signs of rust. Many are listed as Chrome plated but I don't think the sellers really know.

[sactroop]

I'm of the opinion that the fullered Commando is chromed. IMHO at least the bright knives found their way into Navy stores under the general heading of "Hunting Knife" and were distributed to sailors.

 

[thorin6]

Frank Trzaska has the 6-inch Ka-bar as one of nine six-inch hunting knives in his quick list of US Military Knives, Bayonets and Machetes. Cole's Book III, page 67 shows this knife without the fuller and comments that in a letter from Ka-bar they made over 500,000 of these in both parkerized and shiny blades during WWII. It was my understanding that the US Army purchased off-the-shelf 6-inch hunting knives from multiple manufacturers and issued them to soldiers, much like the US Navy bought off-the-shelf 5-inch knives but required they be marked USN and/or Mark1 before they developed the Mark 2.

So my question is did the US Army purchase 6-inch hunting knives and issue them early in WWII or not, and if so, was this 6-inch Ka-bar one of those knives?