The tomahawk on the left is a second generation LaGana Hawk that I picked up off a 101st retired quartermaster in the early 70s. The story that he told was that during the VietNam War, a picture appeared in Life magazine of a stack of vietcong heads with several grunts behind with LaGana Hawks. According to Griffin, the article caused a real stink in his section and he was directed to confiscate and burn all hawks. Griffin keep several that had not been issued and this is one of those. What I don't understand is that according to my sources, the US Army never procured any LaGana Hawks, but Griffin swore that they had. I would like to find a copy of the picture that was in the Life issue.

 

The tomahawk on the right is a reproduction made by Cold Steel of the first generation LaGana Tomahawk.

 

Sure wish someone would put the complete story together about these tomahawks. I have what Silvey had in his book, but there's got to be more. I talked to Cole about a dozen years ago and he said that he had mostly heresy. I just dug these out of storage and thought that I'd post here.

 

Here is an old write-up by Frank Trzaska on the "The Vietnam Tomahawk."

 

http://www.usmilitaryknives.com/okca_1996.htm

 

By the way, it looks like our boys are still using them, this time in the sandbox.

 

Gunbarrel, thanks for the link and the photo. The hawks in the photo look like the ones that Cold Steel made a few years ago. I took knife fighting at Benning in the 60s and one of the sergeants taught a session on using the hawk, a very wicked weapon.

Gunbarrel, from an email that I just received, the hawks in your photo are made by the American Tomahawk Company at http://www.americantomahawk.com/products/vtac.htm. The hawks are derived from the original LaGana Hawks, but with a modern handle.

There was a big discussion on bladeforums about tactical tomahawks, and the real utility they have. Except for a few hero shots of troops with pristine tomahawks posted on makers web sites, I cant find a single action picture of a US military member in action that's carrying one. My last TDY was to Afghanistan in 2006, and in the preceding 21 years I never saw a tomahawk in the field, I did see all manner of other edged weapons. I love them, and have collected several, but I really dont think the weight to utility ratio is good on them. I suspect allot of young bucks buy them and after their first patrol they become shelf ware.

Back in the 60s, I took a course in knife fighting at Ft. Benning and they spent a couple of sessions in showing us how to use tomahawks. One would have had to be very aggressive with one. Good for hooking knees or elbows when one-on-one. Also good for sticking thru the top of a pitch helmet. if I was a grunt today, I wouldn't carry one. But then, the only thing that I retained from the knife fighting sessions was not to get into a knife fight, because everyone gets cut up.

 

Below is a picture of the rubber knives that they had us train with. They put red chalk on the edges and had two of us go at it. Then they graded the red marks. They gave us each two of these for our personnel training. Sure.