polymerase2 wrote:I have the same PAL RH 36 that my dad gave me. He served in the Korean war as an artillery instructor and it was his knife. It sat in his tool drawer for years and always fascinated me. It s a high quality knife that takes a great edge.
The PAL RH-36 is a great blade. It is probably the most common WWII knife you can find now days. They were primarily "deck knives" for the Navy, but served in every capacity in both the Marines and Navy. Many of the RH-36s were purchased by the sailor with an allowance for the purchase paid by the Navy. The Navy also approved other knives for the purpose so any one of a number of commercial knives could easily be "war vets" as well. "RH" stands for Remington Hunting. Right before the war started, Remington sold PAL Cutlery the rights and tools to make Remington pattern knives for military use, while Remington concentrated on making munitions.
As I understand it, and I could be wrong, (I am new to this) the RH-36 was determined to be a bit too large for convenience as a "deck knife" so the official knife ended up becoming the RH-35 (Mark 1) which was about an inch shorter. And then there is the Mark II, an "official knife" which is larger than the RH-36, but it was considered a "combat" knife. The Marines loved it, but most of them remained in the hands of the REMFs, as is the common practice for all of the best military gear.....Of course, Marines, being Marines, called any fixed blade knife a Ka-Bar, regardless of the style or maker.
Then again, a sailor, soldier or marine or airman might write home with a "Hey, dad, send me a hunting knife." So he may end up with almost anything, with common choices being the EGW knife, (rejected by the service for military contract) or something like a Boy Scout knife RH-34 (made with a wooden pommel because aluminum, brass and steel were hard to come because of wartime shortages)
If anyone would care to see the comparisons, side by side, I suspect cap14K could post up some photos, or if not I will be happy to.
