Marine Corps Hospital Bolo

[mvmhm]

One of the groundskeepers walked in today with this. He's going to get me his father's info but all he had to say that his dad was a Corpsman in WWII. The knife will need a little cleaning, but the scabbard is shot.

 

 

 

 

Mark sends

[mvmhm]

...and the scabbard. The body is solid, but you can see where it's not, well, solid.

 

 

 

Mark sends

[mikedon]

Very nice.

 

From what I understand the USMC Medical Corpsmen Bolo originally came in a leather Boyt scabbard although I did get a Plumb bolo in the scabbard you have shown. The USMC square tip machete did come in a scabbard like you have pictured.

See Cole III, page 40 & 41.

The Boyt leather scabbards are easy to come by and relatively inexpensive.

[268th C.A.]

That is the harder to find scabbard too, as I'm sure you know.

[mikedon]

Very nice.

 

From what I understand the USMC Medical Corpsmen Bolo originally came in a leather Boyt scabbard although I did get a Plumb bolo in the scabbard you have shown. The USMC square tip machete did come in a scabbard like you have pictured.

See Cole III, page 40 & 41.

The Boyt leather scabbards are easy to come by and relatively inexpensive.

My mistake, I re-read Frank Trzaska's June 2003 article in Knife World and they are a knife, not a bolo.

 

 

"The United States Marine Corps, Hospital Corps Knife: it is a knife, not a bolo and not a Med­ical Corps knife. The correct nomenclature is arrived at logically; the Naval Med­ical Corps designates its members as officers. Physicians might use a scalpel, letter opener or a pocket knife but not a large knife such as this. The medical enlisted personnel, Navy Corpsmen, who would use this knife, are in the Hospital Corps hence the prop­er name, Hospital Corps Knife."

[BagmanL6]

Wow. Interesting. I was fortunate enough to be the CO of H&S 3/8 back in the mid 90s