New Hampshire
Item
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Title
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New Hampshire
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Date
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December 1939
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volume
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4
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issue
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7
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page start
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16
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page end
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16
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content
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en
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Under the command of Colonel Harry L. Smith, a tournament was recently held at the Portsmouth Navy Yard by Colonel A.J. Drexel Biddle, Instructor of Individual Combat. The winners of the Barracks tournaments were as follows: First Tournament—Knife: Pvt. G.L. Musselwhite; Bayonet: Pvt. R.T. Frizzelle. Second Tournament—Knife: Pvt. J. Galbraith; Bayonet: Corporal R.F. Buckley.
In commenting upon the art of individual combat, Colonel Biddle says, “While there are the standardized Spanish knife and the Cossack knife and various other standardized methods of knife fighting, the Bowie knife is the superior of all. This is the knife, with all its science, used by the Marines.
It is the bayonet worn in a scabbard at the belt that is drawn and used as a Bowie knife when time does not permit the attachment of the bayonet on the rifle. The sword is the world’s only complete weapon. For many thousand years the sword was the only weapon for close combat in duels and in battle, after the spear had been thrown and the arrows shot from bows. Down succeeding centuries the test of all blade science was put into the sword. In these later days, when gun powder has put the sword to disuse, the bayonet nevertheless remains the “star” blade.
The best of sword science is in the Marine bayonet, and in the Marine bayonet used as a knife. The hand cut, which is primary with the sword, will disarm the fighter with the bolo, the machete or the other knives.”
