ID this knife

[Phil]

Thanx Padre! I noticed that I also have a few P-51's.

I have spent lots of money over the years on conventional hand-crank can openers. Most of them eventually break under the stress of my massive paws.

I have never broken, or even bent a P-38 or P-51... AKA- opener, can, hand, folding, type 1.
Although, I have sliced up my thumb several times when the P-38 slipped out of the kerf.

[B-Manic]

The same P-38 has been on my key chain since I was a kid. My dad brought home some ration packs one day and the opener was in there to open the canned bacon (canned bacon ummm good ~not~) and a can of some sort of coagulated meat mush or perhaps it was dog food.

It succeeds when all others fail.

I used to have one of the survival knives too, another gift from my father. I have not seen it in years though.

[Phil]

You know you are really hungry when you actually enjoy your c-rations!!!

Go without food for as long as I have (in the past) and you will consider c-rations as portable gourmet cuisine!!

The meat-mush was my favorite! (don't tell my dog).

[Padre]

I remember a time off the coast of Vietnam on an LST. We were eating all the C-Rats we wanted as the tank deck was loaded with them. A fellow sailor's wife sent him a "gift package".......................what it was was C-Rats with labels that some store was selling to the masses. That "gift" went over the fantail.

[Phil]

I wonder if they are still married? lol

[Ashrunner]

Having spent 18 months at the USAF Survival School at Fairchild AFB, Washington, I can say the knife was part of the survival package issued to students for field work. It was also part of the standard issue survival gear for most aircrews I believe. The knife had a cutting edge, and a thicker, shorter beveled edge for chopping opposite the full length cutting edge. The leather disk of the handle were designed to give good grip in any weather. The base of the knife had many uses, one of which I won't mention here.

Those magnesium firestarters are better than Zippos! I once started a fire in a steady rain...the first didn't last long, but at least it started.

[Ashrunner]

When I was stationed at Thule AB, Greenland, we had C-rations in our barracks for those times when an Arctic storm we called a Phase Storm, hit. You could be stuck in your building for a week or more. I actually got to liking C-rats during that time and took anything anyone wanted to give me.

Then, after the mountain blew in The Philippines, for three months following the eruption, those of us not evacuated back to the states, survived on MREs. Again, I got to liking them. You'd go to the dining hall, get your MRE package and eat it there, or in the field...didn't matter. Again, I accepted all donations of items no one wanted.

However, this time, I carried the items in my cargo pockets of my BDUs (battle dress uniform - in other words, cammies) and would pass the items out to the less fortunate Philippino people just outside the gate. I would get mobbed when I showed up. For some of them, it was the only food they would get.

[Phil]

I hear you Ashrunner, when I ate mine, I was really hungry, and grateful to have them. Everybody else was disgusted...(of course, they were still being weaned off Mommy's cooking).

I have heard the base of the knife referred to as the "skull cracker".

[Rick Thomson]

The knife pictured was a standard part of the CF-104 survival kits in Europe during the 70's and 80's. Aircraft stationed in Canada had the Grohman Boat Knife which made an excellent steak knife if one happened to find it's way into your deployment bag.