Murphy, Clouse, & Barteaux

[hso]

A little WWII glimpse into the Murphy Combat knives and the related Clouse and Barteaux knives. I was reminded of the Murphy Combat knives while handling the copy I have so I started reading again and thought I'd share some quick information on them and their "neighbors".

The Murphy Combat Fighting Knife was produced during World War II by David Z. Murphy and his son David M. Murphy. Murphy was a custom knife maker who fist came to fame as the maker of the knives sold by the Gerber Legendary Blade Knife Company. The “Murphy” fighting knives are often categorized loosely as “Theater Knives”, even though they were not manufactured in a wartime theater of operations. They were, however, fighting knives manufactured for the explicit use of US military forces in combat during the Second World War. Murphy manufactured the knives in Gresham, OR and according to knife maker, researcher and author M.H. Cole (who interviewed David M Murphy), approximately 90,000 knives were produced during the war. This seems to be a very high number, considering the rarity of these knives on the market today. Several knife researchers and authors have postulated that either Murphy was simply incorrect in his estimate of total knives manufactured, or that somewhere along the line the production figures inadvertently received an extra “0” at the end, turning a much more believable total production of 9,000 into 90,000! The knives were produced in two sizes, a standard sized fighting knife with a 6 1/8” blade and a smaller 5” bladed “Jr” combat knife. The smaller knives are much less often encountered than the larger ones, although both are hardly common and in fact tend to be quite scarce. The knives were produced with cast aluminum hilts and bright polished blades, which were manufactured from power hacksaw blades. The larger knife has the words MURPHY COMBAT cast into the obverse grip and U.S.A.cast into the reverse grip. The smaller knife is marked MURPHY COMBAT JR on the reverse grip and U.S.A. on the obverse. The knives were supplied complete with a leather scabbard that was contoured to the guard of the knife and had a grip-retaining strap, which was secured with a snap. Several companies apparently manufactured the scabbards for Murphy, with Hamley’s Saddle Works of Pendleton, OR providing the bulk of the scabbards. M.H. Cole identifies at least four known WWII era scabbards for Murphy combat knives in his books, and assigns the variants numbers 1 through 4.

https://www.collegehillarsenal.com/shop/product.php?productid=925

Clouse was a drinking buddy of Murphy in the blade making days of World War Two. Clouse made a few knives in the Murphy shop at times for friends and relatives and a few too sell. I have held two of them in my lifetime and do not remember any ever being sold. It is a beyond rare knife, in fact so rare the most have never heard of them. Being that rare hurts it in value and desirability. Few want what no one has ever heard of.


Frank Barteaux was a neighbor and friend of Dave Murphy aka creator of the "Murphy combat" knife he copied Murphy's method of casting aluminum handles onto knives, he made very limited amounts of knives during ww2...

 

[bannockburn]

hso

Thanks for the history behind the Murphy Combat Knives! The cast aluminum handle reminds me somewhat of the later Armorhide coated aluminum handles from Gerber.

 

[hso]

It should. Murphy also did the early Gerbers.

David Zephaniah Murphy made the first Gerber Handmade Blades knives before Gerber became known as Gerber Legendary Blades. These were kitchen knives. This was 1938 until 1941

 

[bannockburn]

Didn't know that about the early Gerber knives. Very interesting. Always thought the Armorhide line of knives were a decent buy for not a lot of money.