Khukuri Fighting Techniques?

If Gurkhas look bad only because all of them have a Kukri and Japanese soldiers look good because only mostly sword trained officers carry blades then how is that fair?

Would the Gurkhas limit the carrying of blades to the 1/50th best Kukri fighters then they would suddenly look better in your comparison?
 
If Gurkhas look bad only because all of them have a Kukri and Japanese soldiers look good because only mostly sword trained officers carry blades then how is that fair?

Would the Gurkhas limit the carrying of blades to the 1/50th best Kukri fighters then they would suddenly look better in your comparison?

My point is that if you are looking at fights between Gurkhas armed with kukris and Japanese armed with swords you have to consider that the Japanese armed with swords were officers and as officers of that time likely had more experience in using their swords in armed combat. I am not arguing that Gurkhas are poor soldiers or fighters, just that they might have been at a disadvantage in an armed engagement versus a Japanese officer armed with a sword.

For now, the only instances of Gurkhas fighting Japanese soldiers that I have heard of are the two incidents JW Bensinger mentioned earlier. I wonder if those incidents were recorded because they were typical of such engagements or exceptional. I used the glossary of The Burma Campaign by Frank McLynn to find all references to Gurkhas, but none mentioned hand to hand combat, so I just don't know. I do however know that Gurkhas are exceptional warriors.
 
+1 for using arnis or modern arnis for Khukuri defense. IMO the Filipino arts are the most realalistic and useful when it comes to edged weapon use.
 
I'm thinking most Japanese sword use (and possibly khuk use) during WW2 was largely Amateur Night-my guess as to the Japanese putting guys down was a) reach and b) Gurkha unfamiliarity with Japanese methodology. With weapons, the thing you've never seen before is often the thing that gets you (I have seen this over and over in 25+ years of weapon arts-including some sparring with wildly noncompliant partners.)
 
The kurki is essentially a tactical machete. Outside of the beforementioned ideas, I would suggest looking at Chinese sword fighting with single edge blades. The technique involves using the bottom two fingers to hold the blade while keeping the rest loose. Additional ideas can be found with Thai martial arts which developed around long range attacks against better armed opponents.
 
japanese swordsmanship is formidable, but not undefeatable, nor does it automatically lend its wielded Jedi like invincibility.

A long, two handed curved cutting blade is not unique to only he samurai.

I echo the sentiment that FMA are a better blade focused system, at least compared to modern schools of iaido.

Let's look at the South Phillipines during the war. Like the Spanish; the Japanese never quite established full control.
 
The comment about using a tool from childhood has a lot to do with it. When a tool becomes more than an extension, but really a part of you, you don't need to spend as much time thinking before doing. That tool can be a Kukri, a hockey stick, a welding torch, or a violin.
 
I like big knives, and have ever since I got my first HI kuk about 18 years ago

I think about keeping my wrist loose, and controlling my swings.

Also, very lightweight kuks feel wrong.

John
 
have a look at the 5 pages HERE

i have posted in there a couple of comments on japanese vs. gurkha, one result was the gurkha trading a few fingers for the officer's head, which he brought back to his CO along with the guy's katana. the japanese were not above carrying the local swords (dha) in burma either. i have one that is fairly fancily decorated on the blade that was taken by a chindit from a japanese officer (maybe an nco) who no longer needed it. presumeably because he was deceased.

a ghurkah going home on leave just a few years ago was on a train attacked by 40 indian bandits with ak47's. it did not go well.
for the bandits. the gurkha attacked with his khukri when one of them started molesting a woman, and drove them off.
i seem to recall he was injured in his hand, but the bandits faired much worse. he killed three of them and injured eight others.
 
Last edited:
I'd say it's not an unfair comparison, since your average Japanese soldier didn't carry a sword. Swords were officer weapons in the Japanese military. I don't know what Japanese enlisted men carried, though I wouldn't be too surprised if those stationed to areas like Burma carried machetes.

I like big knives, and have ever since I got my first HI kuk about 18 years ago

I think about keeping my wrist loose, and controlling my swings.

Also, very lightweight kuks feel wrong.

John

Two for three of my older khuks (ww2 era and 1890somethings) are far less than an ounce per inch-the ww2 era blade is 12 ounces and something like 16" oal with an 11-1/2" blade-very pronounced fuller.
The 19th century one is too old to hit anything with, but the clone I made is within a quarter ounce and hits very hard indeed this one's ten ounces or so and about 10" of blade, 1/4" to 3/32 distal. Both are wicked fighters.

This hit was mostly elbow and wrist, trying to get the knife out of the way while I dealt with terrier deathmatch lol
 
when the japs invaded the dutch east indies, they captures a store of hembrug klewangs (same as the milsco cutlass that some marines carried) , cut back the basket guard, shortened it a bit and issued them to sergeants. known as the heiho:

heiho.jpg


my dutch klewang that milsco copied (exactly).

dutch%20klewang.jpg


dutch.jpg


US Marine with the milsco version: this guy is carrying a lot of sharp pointy things. :)
the guy just out of camera left has the guard of his just visible on the ground.

klewang%20marine.jpg


p.s. - HI khuks are in general thicker and heavier than their combat counterparts, to bear up to chopping hard wood.

my old 'weapon' khuks are all about 1/4 in. spined and very maneuverable. and sharp...

this one is bout 20" LOA. point to crown pommel. it has a 3/8 in. spine at the bolster.

hansheeJT.jpg


this one is about the same length, but about 1/4 in. spine.

hanshee%2001.jpg


my favourite, about 18in., 1/4 in. spine, fast too.

armourykukhri006.jpg
 
Last edited:
Kronckew, I looked at that picture of the Klewang and kept saying to myself that it looked very familiar. Then I realized where, and typed in M1917 Cutlass into google and came upon a site that pointed out that the Klewang and M1917 are very similar indeed. And lots of interesting info.

And JW, now you make me want to try a full-sized but lightweight kukri, both for the experience, and because I'm putting together my own take on how to use the kukri as a weapon. I'm up to 11,000 words, but I haven't worked on it in a while.
 
milsco did a straight copy of the hembrug design of the dutch item. basically just changed the name block in the corner from the dutch and used english dimensions. their parts are interchangeable. my scabbard is from a later variant, probably mixed up when the germans issued it to their navy.

mine is apparently a prototype the dutch general had made in solingen, germany well before the war. it was actually captured by the germans after they invaded holland and used on their schnell boats (PT boats) in the channel. mine was 'liberated' by a british MTB (another PT equivalent) during a boarding capture of one of the schnell boats. one of my father-in-laws was a royal navy MTB boat captain in ww2, and was severly wounded in one of these MTB/Schnell boat fracas. he later after the war actually met the german captain that shot him. apparently he'd also been wounded. they had a great time from all appearances, and much beer was consumed.

we have the odd concurrence of the US, Germany, Japan and probably the UK all using the same edged weapon in their arsenals, tho the japs did modify it to suit them.

cold steel of course make a replica & even a longer 'sabre' version which did not occur in the real world...

oops! i forgot. never mention the war. bad things happen when you mention the war...

[video=youtube;EsEH578NiWY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsEH578NiWY[/video]

..and for god's sake, do not expect the spanish inquisition!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Quite a story. I've heard a bit about the Fairmiles and the S-Boats. Never researched them in depth (or would the proper phrase be 'in draft' for a boat?) but there's a lot of interesting stuff there. Though it is funny how we have an image of cutlass fighting at sea, but all the blade on blade fighting in WWII was on land. I've heard that supposedly lots of USMC sabers saw combat use in the Pacific. Then there was the stuff that went on in Burma, in the Philippines, and the cloak and dagger that went on in Europe.
 
sadly, the cutlasses were not used during the s-boat boardings. they'd already surrendered by the time the brits boarded them, presumably with pistols & sten guns. i seem to recall the last actual cutlass in hand boarding was ww one-ish. boarding axes/pikes well before that.

of course, some bright spark of a US admiral decided at the start of ww2 that swords for officers and cutlasses for enlisted were obsolete & should be turned in and melted down for scrap. mostly ignored (especially as the officers had had to buy theirs) there was essentially a silent mutiny, and eventually the bean counter relented & swords were re-instated. cutlasses were reinstated a few years later for training command ceremonials, and i gather are fairly prevalent aboard ship now. if i were a CO i'd ensure they were carried while boarding suspects. (along with their bayonetted assault rifles & pistols of course). nothin' says we won - you lost like a shimmer of cold steel. i'm afraid the current admin , extended under hitlery as POTUS would frown on actually confronting our enemies with weapons that might scare them. after all - thay have rights.
 
Nothing to tell it belongs to kronk. One of his pictures that made me happy like most of his pictures.
 
it's godzilla, my 20" overall stag gripped beasty. fits my had like it was made for me. which in a way it was. hanshee blade is 743 grams (26.2 oz.) & 14.25 in. long, (1.84 oz./in.) single broad fuller both sides. 3/8 in. spine. i decided he needs to be my avatar.

hansheeJT.jpg


a friend of mine is a martial artist and a thai swordsmanship practitioner of repute. he had the blade, grip-less he'd picked up from a yard sale or some such,and offered it to me at a very good price, he offered to put a grip on it and make a scabbard, he got a bit carried away. under the buckskin suede cover is a surplus to requirements old indian khuk cover that came from a deceased touristy lion head khuk that happened to fit with a bit of work. he also makes museum grade swords using only traditional materials & tools. he's also a buddhist monk, lives in a cave at the top of a mountain in thailand and is very hard to communicate to as he doesn't have a mobile phone. he comes down once a year to pick up the cabbage and bag of red onions he survives on for the rest of the year, and picks up his mail, to which he replies during next year's food run. he's 5ft. 3 in., weighs 85 lb. and bruce lee took one look at him and ran away shaking and screaming he was sorry he'd insulted him and didn't want to fight him. ever. he looks like an innocuous run of the mill average person, except for the muscles. even his muscles have muscles. his ears have muscles. you do not want to see him when he gets angry. the incredible hulk avoids him when he is angry. yet he will rescue a butterfly with a hurt wing, bandage it and nurse it back to health before releasing it from whence it came. those in the know, know of whom i speak, but his name shall remain unspoken - as he is a humble man. he did say he cut and angled the grip to fit HIS hand, which i gather is exactly the same as mine by happy circumstance and exquisite skill.

the sword he forged & made me from scratch also fits me perfectly. the design comes from a 400 year old ayuttahyan sword in a thai museum. it is a deliberate munitions grade 'grunt' model for hard use rather than a prissy officer's parade junk.

the blades's roman nose and the slight angle to the grip are deliberate. it is really a one handed sword, the extra length balances the blade just ahead of the bolster and can shield the forearm from opponents strikes.tho both hands could be used when necessary - which ain't often. it's field sharp - you could shave a buffalo with it in a field. fittings are rust blued steel, grip is malacca rattan, sections in between the steel fittings are covered in pattern knotted string with a few dozen coats of real laquer. the substantial tang extends back to just under the central steel ring section, and like a khuk, held in by the thai version of laha. he has a few hives of trained bees that harvest the tree sap required, and seperately supply him with honey for his onion & cabbage stews as well. he protects the bees in return from the giant japanese bee eating wasps, which he captures, converts to buddhism, and releases back into the wild, forever after vegetarians.
Ayutthaya%20sword%208.jpg
 
Last edited:
I don't know weather to be absolutely amazed or go shopping for chest waders here but I love every word of it.

By the way, your favorite in your last picture group is also my favorite. Very nice blade, that last one. Handsome and business like.

My best to the moat monsters.
 
Back
Top