Hey all. Just found this book that I am revisiting and thought this passage might be interesting for the martial artists to read about Mr. Fairbairn's contributions.
"...I met Major William E. Fairbairn....Fairbairn was an expert at Judo and Jujiutsu long before martial arts were much now in this country [USA during pre American direct invovlement in WWII]...
... In time, Fairbairn taught us all the martial arts- judo and karate, the most useful blows of Chinese Boxing, the high kicks of the French Savate, and many other tricks of gutter fighting picked up in the alleys of the Shanghai waterfront. Among the weapons he taught us to use were his own stilleto-type Sikes-Fairbairn knife, a jungle machete another weapon he called a smatchet...Fairbairn taught us how to get rid of an opponent using normal everyday items..."
Jerry Sage goes on to explain that Major Fairbairn taught instinctive shooting with a variety of weapons and developed a shoot house for the OSS operational training - something fairly new for the time (1942).
I have read summaries and fact/figure type info on Major Fairbairn but it is different reading it from a student/operators perspective who trained this way with the man and later actually gives accounts of really using this training and can compare what they learned to how it worked for him 'straight from the horses mouth' or at least in writing. Interestingly enough, even after years of looking back on this and other training (book was published in 1985, Miles Standish press), he really seems to feel that his training with Fairbairn and others was absolutely applicable/perfectly aligned to prepare him for the tasks he was asked to do on missions.
I wonder how Major Fairbairn would be recieved in todays martial arts community given this kind of ecclectic background and the wide variety of weapons that he taught people to use along with the empty hand stuff.
"...I met Major William E. Fairbairn....Fairbairn was an expert at Judo and Jujiutsu long before martial arts were much now in this country [USA during pre American direct invovlement in WWII]...
... In time, Fairbairn taught us all the martial arts- judo and karate, the most useful blows of Chinese Boxing, the high kicks of the French Savate, and many other tricks of gutter fighting picked up in the alleys of the Shanghai waterfront. Among the weapons he taught us to use were his own stilleto-type Sikes-Fairbairn knife, a jungle machete another weapon he called a smatchet...Fairbairn taught us how to get rid of an opponent using normal everyday items..."
Jerry Sage goes on to explain that Major Fairbairn taught instinctive shooting with a variety of weapons and developed a shoot house for the OSS operational training - something fairly new for the time (1942).
I have read summaries and fact/figure type info on Major Fairbairn but it is different reading it from a student/operators perspective who trained this way with the man and later actually gives accounts of really using this training and can compare what they learned to how it worked for him 'straight from the horses mouth' or at least in writing. Interestingly enough, even after years of looking back on this and other training (book was published in 1985, Miles Standish press), he really seems to feel that his training with Fairbairn and others was absolutely applicable/perfectly aligned to prepare him for the tasks he was asked to do on missions.
I wonder how Major Fairbairn would be recieved in todays martial arts community given this kind of ecclectic background and the wide variety of weapons that he taught people to use along with the empty hand stuff.
