MARTIAL ARTS & THE MILITARY
If you
read any martial art magazine, especially those that come from the United
States, you will find infommercials, adverts posing as information. You know the
type "fear no man", as taught to elite units: "navy seals, marine commandos, and
swat police units". The martial artist claims that he was an instructor for
special forces at some secret government facility, that must remain secret due
to national security. As someone who has never taken the Queen's Shilling,
joined up, I can only speak from the information I receive from those who have,
they tell me that unarmed combat skills are a low priority in training both in
the British and American army, you should never be without a weapon that can
kill, only at the very last resort should you face an enemy empty handed. That
is not to say certain skills are not learnt, arrest and restraining holds are
taught to our troops for use in Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia and the
Gulf, when they act as a policing force. They are also taught methods to disarm
knifes or guns as well as methods to neutralise sentries, kill them, but their
unarmed combat system is very rudimentary, consisting of a few techniques with
the emphasis on aggression. It used to be said that the British Army used to
learn their unarmed fighting skills in the pubs and clubs of Aldershot, but I am
told the army now takes a dim view of squadies fighting with civilians. In the
late nineteen eighties I took a couple of courses in Plymouth, basic unarmed
combat and advanced unarmed combat, these courses were run by ex-marines but the
instructor was a parachute regiment sergeant major who was doing his last tour
of duty before he retired with the marines. On conversation with him the subject
of military unarmed combat came up, he informed me that after the Falkland's War
a group of military martial artists suggested that they reform the system that
was taught, as soldiers had been killed in close combat when their weapons
jammed and they had to fight hand to hand with the Argentineans, the senior
officers listened to their proposals and then rejected them, they agreed that
the close quarter system was inadequate but they were terrified that some
soldier would get tanked up on alcohol and kill some civilian in Aldershot; this
is the reason why British Close Quarter Battle skills is not going to consist of
anything more than restraining holds and sentry neutralisation techniques. It
was not always so.
The Europeans had a fighting tradition which has been
catalogued since the middle ages, the German manuals of fighting techniques,
Fechtbucher, are the best preserved, the thoughts of Tallhoffer on combat are as
valid today as any oriental tradition. For anyone interested in the English
fighting tradition I recommend Terry Brown's "The English Martial Arts". But
apart from bayonet fighting drills which came from pike staff drills, the army
did not recommend closing with the enemy, who were more often more skilled than
our troops, hence the use of gatling guns, cannon and Martini rifles to win
against the pirates in the South China Seas in the nineteenth century than
fighting hand to hand. The First World War with it's trench raids and forries
into no-mans-land showed the need for unarmed combat skills. The ladies from
hell, the Scots Soldiers, as they were called by the Germans, made use of their
traditional weapon the cut throat razor made famous in the gang fights in
Glasgow to good effect. I have seen pictures of a trench knife, a stiletto blade
attached to a knuckle duster, which was issued to American Troops, a frightening
weapon. One school of unarmed combat was formed by Bill Underwood, who took his
experiences in trench warfare and his pre-war instruction from Yoko Tani, as a
young boy he worked in a music hall venue where the great Tani was taking on all
comers using judo/jui jitsu for the entertainment of the crowds. Bill Underwood
was small for his age and Tani between performances taught him self defence
tricks, as he took pity on him. These lessons sparked a life long interest in
self defence, which Underwood using the principles he learned from Tani and
techniques he created and learned from other instructors to form Defendo, this
was developed by Bill Underwood when he immigrated to Canada. He was selected as
a guest instructor to teach his system in Camp X a training facility in Canada
set up to train S.O.E., and O.S.S. personnel, who were trained to conduct
clandestine warfare against the German, Italian and Japanese forces during the
Second World War.
The main instructor at Camp X was a be speckled Englishman
William Ewart Fairbaim who had been in the Far East since 1901, and had served
in the toughest, most violent seaport at that time Shanghai since 1907 as a
Shanghai International Policeman, a multi-national, multiracial force created to
bring order to the wide open city that was Shanghai. Soon after he joined the
police force, he was almost beaten to death by a group of red poles, enforcers
for the dominant Chinese Criminal Gang, the Green Gang. They had been trying to
kill him and left him so badly beaten they thought he would die, he recovered
and while he was in hospital whilst recovering he promised himself this would
never happen again, thumbing over a newspaper he noticed an advertisement for a
bone setter and jui jitsu teacher; when he recovered he took lessons everyday
for seven years from his Japanese teacher. He also took lessons from the Dowager
Empress of China's last body guard, adding kung fu to his fighting skills. He
was graded to 2nd Dan by Jigaro Kano, founder of judo; in judo, pre 1947 judo
was more of a complete system that covered: atemi,strikes, nage, throws,
kansetsu, joint locks, and shimi waza, strangulation techniques than the
sporting form is today. His senior officers knowing of his interest in martial
arts asked him to form a reserve unit, 'Riot squad'-the first S.W.A.T. police
unit to handle dangerous situations that the normal policeman could not handle.
For thirty years he and his squad took part in some of the most violent
conflicts the city had to offer both armed, his book "Shooting to Live" was the
first text book on practical pistol shooting, and unarmed combat with emphasise
on restraining techniques. He taught a group of American Marines that were
stationed in Shanghai and they brought that knowledge to the United States.
After thirty years Fairbaim retired as Assistant Commissioner of the Shanghai
International Police, and returning to Britain with the head of his riot squad
offered his services to Britain in 1940 when Britain was on it's knees. The
authorities took him up on his offer and along with Bill Sykes, head of the riot
squad, started teaching the troops a stripped down version of the system he had
taught to the International Police. The techniques were designed to maim or kill
he called it gutter fighting. An American Rex Applegate, a noted hunter, was
charged by Bill Donovan, head of the O.S.S. to learn everything he could on
armed and unarmed combat, on training with Fairbairn he recommended him as the
unarmed combat instructor for Camp X , a training facility set in Canada to get
around the U.S.A. neutrality act for the training of agents when America went to
war. The training of British forces was left to Sykes and Fairbairn went to
Canada. The flavour of the system taught by Fairbairn can be seen from his book:
"All in Fighting", called "Get Tough" in the U.S.A.
There were other martial artists who taught the home guard,
James Hipkiss taught the Birmingham home guard with a system that was based on
jui jitsu. His book "Unarmed Combat" was printed for home guard units. A
Canadian Captain Leather Hartly also taught a jui jitsu based system to the home
guard. These martial artist were making their contribution to the war effort.
In the U.S.A. Rex Applegate wrote the classic book on
military combat, "Kill or Be Killed", the bible for riot control and close
quarter fighting for American troops. A Philadelphian socialite and Marine Corps
reserve officer Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, formed a group that taught muscular
Christianity he as a hobby tried to reform souls and had the finances to train
with notable boxers, wrestlers, fencing masters and European weapon instructors,
he taught a system that was more in the classical fighting tradition of Europe
and America with some ideas brought back from marines that had served in
Shanghai and trained with Fairbairn. The result of this is the book, "Do or
Die", I find the language a bit old fashioned for my taste but it reflects the
believes of the man. This system was taught pre second world war in the American
Marines. A student of Biddle, John Jasper Styles took the ideas of Colonel
Biddle and used them to produce the book, "Cold Steel", which covers bayonet
fighting, knife fighting, knife throwing, stick fighting and unarmed combat.
The military were not the only ones to have an unarmed combat
tradition, with the onset of World War 2, the United States Coastguard was given
the task of guarding the ports, harbours and coastline of the United States. An
unarmed combat program was called for to teach policing skills to the
coastguard. The commander of the coastguard asked for the toughest person he
could think of the former heavy weight boxing champion of the World Jack
Dempsey, he agreed to get the coastguard members fit with boxing training but
called on the services of a wrestler Bernard J. Cosneck to teach them unarmed
combat, an eclectic system he called "Combat Judo".
In World War 2 the American naval aviators were the elite
they were taught an unarmed combat system by Wesley Brown, the former wrestling
captain of the Chicago University Wrestling team. He during the Chicago Worlds
Fair got a job acting as security due to his wrestling background a man was
molesting a waitress at the French pavilion and Brown went to eject him. The man
pulled a gun on Brown and after saying he "didn't feel like killing him today"
walked off; this incident had an effect on Brown he talked to anyone who knew
anything about self defence and worked out strategies to deal with armed people.
Later on he was observed reviving a drunk by pressing into a nerve centre by a
Chicago Police Captain who was so impressed with this that he recommended him
for the police academy. Brown became a police officer and after a time he became
an unarmed combat instructor at the academy as well as the wrestling instructor
at the University of Chicago. When W.W. 2 occurred he was called up to teach the
naval aviators unarmed combat to use if they were shot down in hostile
territory.
With the victory of W.W.II the lessons of the military
combat instructors were abandoned and oriental techniques came to the fore, the
tried and battle hardened methods of Fairbairn, Applegate, Underwood, Styles
were rejected in favour of judo, karate, tae kwon do based systems, with their
oriental mythology.
Yours in budo.
Ian "Lurch" Durie.