Strange as it may seem, the U.S. Marine Corps entered the jungle campaigns of World War II without a decent combat knife. Their first attempt was a double-edge dagger based on the British Commando knife, but it quickly proved to be a very poor utility blade for infantry combat. Going back to the drawing board and working with Union and Camillus cutlery companies, they came up with an all-purpose sheath knife, the USMC Knife/Fighting-Utility Model 1219C2. Camillus is said to have made the first deliveries to the Marines on January 27, 1943. Maybe “Knife/Fighting-Utility 1219C2” was just too big of a mouthful, and Camillus just didn’t have much of a ring to it. In any case, Leathernecks quickly unofficially labeled all knives of this pattern “kabars” after the trademark stamp of Union cutlery. (From this point on in the article “KA-BAR” is a cutlery company, “kabar” is a generic knife pattern.) A legend was born that continues to this day!

The knife that started it all. Top, a KA-BAR USMC combat knife and bottom the same model as made by Pal Cutlery. Both are WW-II issue weapons. Pal is one of the rarer contractures for a USMC knife. ~Steven Dick