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Overlooked Important WWII Figures from History

Khalid Elhassan October 20, 2019 31 min

16. The Knife-Fighting Expert

Commandos training with the Fairbairns-Sykes Knife. Commandos Veterans Association

Stan Scott developed expertise with the Fairbairn-Sykes Commando knife, and became an authority on its fighting techniques. He distilled its technical use thusly, after the war: “”If I’m going into somebody and I’m going to use this, I don’t have to push it forwards. Just grab him and pull him onto the knife. You got it?

But mostly, if you’re going to do a job on a sentry, you don’t do what they say – lift his chin up and cut his throat like that. Yes, lift his chin up, but put the knife in by the jugular vein, which is both sides of the throat, push it through, punch it forward. You rip out the lot. Bit of a messy job, but that’s it.”“

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.