Cold Steel!
Sixteen inches of steel at the end of a rifle can be a lease on life when
“Assault Fire" comes and men tight hand-to-hand, no holds barred.
The bayonet is the last souvenir of days when men slugged it out
with sword and battle-axe. Artillery and automatic weapons kill at
a distance. chemicals sometimes inflict casualties days after first released.
There is nothing delicate or deceiving about a bayonet. Grooved
for blood letting and cast for bitter service, it is a fearful weapon in the
hands of a trained fighter. It is the weapon of the individual
soldier. It is vicious. And it is still important in warfare of tanks and
mechanized equipment. Today we fight not in masses but in combat
teams in which every man is a unit within himself.
The supposedly-expert Jap felt American steel burn on Bataan.
Those same Japs have been accused by Chiang Kai-Shek's guerillas of
refusing the challenge of man-to-man fight. But if the Jap‘s courage
to face steel is questioned, his training in the weapon is not. He is
drilled incessantly in its use. British Commandos have developed the
bayonet and a dozen variations of it. Their use of steel is as
great as the German's aversion to it.
The long, thin blade of the Russian soldier has helped withstand
Hitler on the Eastern Front.
The bayonet cannot and does not pretend to be more effective than
fire power. But as long as there are armies there will be bayonets, be-
cause where there are armies men will come together in personal combat.
In that kind of fight steel wins. From time immemorial, it has
been the same. Caesar had his battle pikes, and what were they but
bayonets when you come to think of it. In the Middle Ages, they had
their swords, and swords slash like bayonets.
You know the part the bayonet played in the World War_ The part
it played in China.
A pot-bellied fellow with eagles on his shoulders and store teeth
upstairs pointed his bayoneted Springfield Id toward a hard boiled
infantry regiment at Ft. Bragg.
“All right, now," he shouted,
"kill me."
Nobody moved.
The chicken-claws pointed to the ranks.
“You, come and get me.“ But the kid he singled out was scared.
“Dammit, I want you to cut my throat.“
The Private made a half hearted bayonet thrust. .
Don't Be Yellow “You're yellow," the Colonel
yelled, prancing up and down in his black sneakers. “I want a man
who's not afraid to kill. Step out, you there," he commanded a tough-
looking 30-year-old sergeant. The buck stepped from the ranks.
“Now come running at me with your bayonet," he ordered, "and go
for my throat."
The sergeant wet his lips. He clenched his gun and lunged full
speed at the Colonel's neck. Col. Anthony J. Drexel Biddle,
who knows more about bayonets, knives and ju jitsu than any other
man, partied the thrust with his own bayonet. Before the sergeant
could mumble, “Holy smoke," Biddle had his own bayonet alongside
the sergeant’s throat, and the big buck was sweating.
“That‘s how it‘s done," the Colonel said. “Now let’s all try it."
A leatherneck
Ever since World War I in which he saw actual service on a half
dozen fronts, Marine Corps Colonel Biddle, now 67, has been risking
his Adam's Apple on behalf of recruit training. Loaned to the Army
by the Marines, the former world's amateur heavyweight boxing
champion has taught the fundamentals of in-fighting to para-
chutists at Lakehurst, raider battalions at Quantico, and thousands
of camp trainees along the Eastern seaboard.
Of the scores of ambitious recruits who've tried to beat the old boy,
either in jiujitsu, wrestling, boxing, or bayoneting, only one succeeded.
A marine at Quantico supposedly got him in the groin with a knife.
Thus far no one has been able to locate a witness to the event or find
out the |narine's name. Marine Headquarters says, “So far as we
can determine, it never happened."
Biddle ls McCoy
The present crop of Army men he's trained swear by the Colonel.
“Biddle is the real McCoy,“ they say. “In one hour this old guy
teaches us more about bayonets and self-defense than we've learned
in a whole year. He really knows how to kill. Some of us who've been
in the artillery shooting shells five miles away never realized that
death could be dished out to us six inches away."
Private Joe Hill of Ft. Bragg, N. C., said: “I tried to get him my-
self today. You know what the old geezer did? He knocked the damn
gun outa my hand. I think this Biddle is nuts.
““Nuts?” another yardbird asked.
"Yeah," Hill answered. “Look at him. He's a Philadelphia Biddle.
He's got more money than you could shake a stick at. He's old
enough to be our grandfather. And still he wantsa risk his neck. I tell
you he's nuts. Only trouble with Army is that we ain't got more
nuts just like him.“
A Sentimental Cuss
At the other end of the pole, Biddle, despite his outward leatherneck
hard-heartedness, is sentimental about his charges. “All the
men in this new Army," he says, “are a great bunch of fellows, fine
boys to teach."
“Do you find many of them gun-shy," we asked, “or reluctant to use
a bayonet?"
Biddle reflected for a moment, closing his right eye. “Not many of
them. They're not like Mussolini's soldiers. When I come across a man
who looks as if he might hesitate to use the knife on the enemy, I tell
him, ‘Son, when you meet a Jap in battle, say to him real fast, “How is
your dear old mother?" Then cut his throat.‘ "
“Does that help any?“
“Don't know exactly," replied the Colonel. “But it's good for their
conscience. . .special1y on Mother‘s Day."
