Eugene Sledge "Meat Cleaver" Knife.

[tdogchristy90]

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I'm curious. I've been reading "With the Old Breed" and Sledge lays out pretty well what he took ashore on Peleliu.

 

One of the items is a "a heavy-bladed knife similar to a meat cleaver that my dad sent me; I used this to chop through the wire braces wrapped around the stout crates of 60mm mortar shells"

 

Has anyone seen this, what his cleaver looked like, brand of knife, ect? Again he's detailed enough in his listings that I can picture it. I just can't picture his "cleaver knife".

[Allan H.]

As I recall, Sledge's father had served as a doctor in World War I, so I assmed that he was sent a hospital bolo, or perhaps a Plumb M1910 bolo. It is also possible that Sledge's father sent him a different knife and that he had acquired a square tipped bolo (usually seen made by Disston) issued to various Marine units, or maybe even a corpsman's knife. All of these are rather heavy bladed and could be formidable devices for hacking any number of things. Unfortunately, I can't think of any commercial blades that Sledge describes in his book.

 

I'd be interested to hear what others might think.

 

Allan